In Living Waters
by HolyheadHarpsichord
Summary: Harry is still coping with the repercussions of the final battle. Draco is trying to conquer his own personal demons, and struggling to keep his head above water. A steamy encounter in Harry's kitchen makes them realize they have more in common than they would like to think. Rated M for sexual content and violence in future chapters. CW: Suicide attempt, heavy angst, Rape/Non-con
1. Chapter 1

AN: Just a quick note for everyone that has been enjoying this story, I am still working on this! Currently quarantined due to the Coronavirus and I'm going back through editing and adding things to the initial chapters I had published (because I'm an incurable perfectionist and unfortunately that's not going to change anytime soon.) Thank you for sticking with me and for your continued interest in this story! I promise I have some exciting things in store for you, and now that I /finally/ have time to write they should be coming soon.

**Chapter One**

"_Oh, to see without my eyes_

_The first time that you kissed me_

_Boundless by the time I cried_

_I built your walls around me_

_White noise, what an awful sound_

_Fumbling by Rogue River_

_Feel my feet above the ground_

_Hand of God, deliver me."_

_-Sufjan Stevens, Mystery of Love _

June, 1998

Sleep was a pursuit Harry had long since abandoned.

He lay on the couch, his breathing striking up a rhythm that threatened to lull him out of consciousness, but every time his eyes started to drift shut something in his body jolted him awake. He would remember to check on something in the kitchen, or suddenly need to dig his Sneakoscope out of his old school trunk, or feel an inexplicable burst of energy and decide that exercise was precisely the kind of release that would cure him of his restlessness.

This time, however, his thoughts of sleep were interrupted by a loud rapping on the front door.

He shot bolt upright, reaching instinctively for his glasses and wand, which were resting on the roll top desk beside him in the study. Without really wondering who could be paying him a visit this early in the morning, he stepped hesitantly into the entryway, trying to see if he could discern the figure at the door by the silhouette in the window. The knock came again, harder this time. He knew it couldn't have been Hermione, as she was on holiday with her parents in Greece. Ron, Ginny, or anyone else from the Auror department would surely have written to him or tried to contact him via floo powder before showing up at his house.

His mind flashed to a vision of him opening the door to face Voldemort, and finally meeting his end when he was least expecting it. He gripped the wand a little tighter, reaching for the doorknob.

The figure in front of him was probably the last person he would have guessed would show up on his front doorstep. Draco Malfoy, all six foot 2 inches of him, was standing with his black coat pulled up to his chin and the circles under his eyes looking almost worse than Harry had ever seen them. He had the look of a corpse who was being possessed by some, weak, lifelike spirit that had not learned to play a very convincing human. His grey eyes were glossy and lifeless, like he, too, had not slept well at all since the battle. He looked, if at all possible, worse than Harry felt.

"What are you doing here?" The words tumbled out of Harry's mouth before he could stop them. He and Draco hadn't parted on the best of terms, but he immediately regretted his defensiveness when he saw the look on Malfoy's face.

"Granger didn't tell you I was coming?"

"No, why would she-" Harry stopped, remembering the letter she had left for him which was still on the kitchen table, unopened. She had told him to "think carefully about it, and let her know what he decided", whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. "No." He said, realizing that he had answered the door without a shirt, expecting really anyone but Draco Malfoy to be calling. He crossed his arms over his chest hastily.

"Right then," Malfoy said quietly, his eyebrows raised slightly. He brought his eyes back down to his shoes.

"What's this about?" Harry began, stopping him from turning around and heading back to wherever it was he came from. "And how do you know where I live?"

Draco sniffed audibly and shifted his feet, still looking down at the ground. Harry wondered if his lack of clothing was making the man feel uncomfortable.

"Granger," he replied. "She set this up, said it would be a good idea for me to come get the wand from you in person."

It dawned on Harry suddenly, and he was surprised he hadn't thought of this before. The Hawthorne wand. The one that had killed Voldemort. Of course Draco would be wanting it back, now that the dark lord was gone and Draco was no longer permanently indebted to his service. He hadn't considered the possibility that Draco might be paying him a visit until this very moment.

"Why don't you come inside?" He said, mostly wanting to get out of the chill morning air so his nipples would stop being so visibly hard. "You look like you could use a drink."

The taller boy's brow furrowed, although Harry noticed a hint of amusement in his expression.

"It's ten in the morning."

Harry let out a dramatic sigh, and rolled his eyes instinctively.

"Alright, then, I'll have a drink and you can just stand here on my doorstep while I find your wand. Mind you, it might take me the whole afternoon. I wasn't prepared for this."

"So you haven't talked to Granger?"

"No, I haven't. Come inside, it's fucking cold."

Draco obliged, following Harry into the entryway and shutting the door behind him. Harry caught a whiff of his cologne as he stepped into the house, for some reason finding the scent vaguely familiar.

"Charming place you've got here, Potter," Draco said with a bit of the drawl that Harry remembered from their school days. He ran a long, pointed finger along the banister leading up to the staircase, inspecting the layer of dust on his hand after doing so.

"Well not all of us can live in haunted mansions half the size of Wiltshire," Harry replied, bringing his hand up to ruffle through his messy black hair. Malfoy opened his mouth as though he had a retort to Harry's comment, but something like an invisible cloud passed over him, and he shut it again. He took off his coat and hung it on the banister in the entryway, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves neatly and running a hand along the fade of his own hair, which was as tidy and freshly trimmed as Harry's was unruly.

Feeling suddenly very aware of his bare chest, Harry grabbed a shirt out of his dresser in the study and slipped it over his torso as Draco followed him into the kitchen.

"Do you often begin drinking before most people are awake?" Draco asked, still looking around at the furnishings and decor that adorned the house. Harry supposed it didn't look that different from what Draco must be used to — the old wizarding family artifacts and symbols decorating the hallways, the remnants of dark magic still lingering in the corners of the house, despite Sirius' efforts to remove all traces of his family from this place.

"These days, yes," Harry responded, cracking open an aged bottle of firewhiskey that Sirius had left in the pantry, and pouring them each a glass. Before he could cast a chilling charm on the whiskey, Draco had already picked his drink up and tossed it back in two, short pulls. Harry raised his eyebrows slightly, the corners of his mouth upturned.

"And it would seem that you're in no place to be criticizing my drinking habits," Harry remarked, smirking. He sipped at his own glass. "Not that I'm complaining — None of the usual lot will drink with me. Something about 'not enabling certain destructive behaviors'. Because Hermione thinks I have a drinking problem." Draco nodded in recognition at Hermione's name, and Harry had to press him on the issue, merely out of curiosity.

"How long have you two been... talking?"

"We're not talking."

Harry frowned.

"Alright then, why did she send you here? Why couldn't I have just owled your wand over to you?"

Draco stared for a moment at the bottom of his glass. Harry imagined he was contemplating whether or not it was acceptable for him to fill it up again so he could stomach the conversation the two of them were about to have.

"She wrote to me a couple weeks ago, after...The end of term."

Their eyes met for a moment, both of them understanding that the subtext for "end of term" was the Battle of Hogwarts, in which they were both fighting on different sides. Draco brought his eyes back down to his glass.

"And?"

Draco took a deep breath, clearly not comfortable with people prying him for information.

"She just thought you and I should talk in person." Draco, clearly realizing the two of them were past the point of exchanging social pleasantries, set down his glass on the counter and refilled it himself. He lifted it to his pale lips, this time savoring the taste of the whiskey instead of inhaling it in one breath.

"What would we have to talk about?" Harry was getting more irritated with Hermione by the second. What was she playing at, inviting someone else into his home, facilitating an armistice between two people who wanted nothing to do with each other?

"Well, we can start with my wand," Draco said, sipping his firewhiskey and leaning himself against the counter in the kitchen. Two faint, pink spots had appeared on his cheeks. He looked more relaxed than he had when he came in, and was taking on the same haughty demeanor again that Harry had always known to associate with him back at school. "You do still have it, don't you?"

"Right, sorry...One moment." Harry placed his whiskey down on the counter next to Draco, straightening his glasses and excusing himself from the room. To his surprise, Malfoy did not interpret this as a mark of dismissal, but as an invitation to follow him into the hallway. Draco picked up Harry's glass and carried both it and his own as he trailed Harry into the study, where all of Harry's possessions were spread out haphazardly on almost every surface of the room.

"Christ, Potter. You live like a hermit." Draco sipped his whiskey from the doorway, his eyebrow arched as he watched Harry try to dig through books, rolls of parchment and loose potion ingredients strewn across the floor. "Didn't you inherit a house elf with this place?"

"Well I don't usually have visitors." Harry retorted, kneeling down to open his school trunk and rummaging through its contents for a moment before drawing out his own wand to summon Draco's. "I've asked Kreacher to stay at Hogwarts, and Hermione has finally gotten off my back about the house elf liberation front. It's well worth it, if you ask me. Besides," he grunted, finally withdrawing the Hawthorne wand from the crevices of his school trunk. "It's nearly impossible to have a wank when he's just around the corner, mumbling about Sirius' mum and bursting into tears every half hour." Harry paused, noting after the fact that this was the kind of joke he would usually make in the presence of Ron, and not necessarily to the man who had tormented and bullied him relentlessly for most of his adolescence.

"The wand," Draco began, turning slightly pink, but otherwise ignoring Harry's comment about Kreacher. "Will it… will it work for me like it did before?" Harry got up and walked over to the entryway, taking his own whiskey glass from Draco, and handing over the wand. He noticed Draco's expression change as he ran his fingers over the intricately carved wood, a trace of a smile flitting across his face. It was as though he were being reunited with an old friend.

"It should," Harry said, staring into his glass. "I think I relinquished ownership when I chose my own wand. I haven't used it since, but you should be the rightful owner again." He wondered if he should tell Draco about the kinship he had with this wand, how it really did seem to work for him almost as effectively as his own. Did that mean this wand played to their individual strengths, or did they have some of these strengths in common?

Draco cleared his throat, finally looking up into Harry's face. His eyes didn't seem as cold as Harry had always remembered them being, and despite his thinner frame and the faint, dark blonde stubble lining his jaw, Harry thought him strangely handsome. He supposed he had always thought that, but something about the usually sour expression on Malfoy's face tarnished what attractiveness might have been found there. A memory that Harry hadn't recalled in quite some time resurfaced, and Harry had to fight to suppress it as he looked at Draco over his firewhiskey.

"And you really… you really killed him with this? With my wand?" Draco asked, staring at the object in his hand as though it had some profound, new power to it. Harry hadn't given this matter a great deal of thought. Yes, Voldemort's curse had rebounded, but it had done so when he was using Draco's wand to defend himself. Perhaps that was why Hermione had wanted the two of them to speak about this matter. She might have thought Harry harbored some sentimental attachment to the item that avenged the murder of his parents.

"Er… yeah. I suppose I did."

Draco stared at the wand for a moment, visibly contemplating the amount of power this small, wooden object had been able to produce. Instead of mulling over the fact for too long, however, he drained the remainder of the firewhiskey left in his glass.

"Easy with that, Malfoy… it's probably older than your father."

Malfoy sputtered halfway through the drink. "Is that what you're spending your galleons on these days? Whiskey? God forbid you hire a maid to tidy this place up..."

"I like my privacy." Harry shrugged, walking back into the kitchen to lead Malfoy away from the mess in his study. "And Sirius left loads of stuff in the cabinets. I don't know where he got all of it, but there's enough to open my own pub, probably."

"I don't know that anyone would set foot in a pub this revolting."

Harry let out a loud chuckle at this, which seemed to catch Malfoy a bit off guard.

"I haven't had any time to fix it up yet! This place will be a regular Hog's Head come September."

"I can't think of a worse spot to model your business after."

A rare, genuine smile spread across Malfoy's face, and Harry couldn't help but stare at the way it transformed his features. Maybe the firewhiskey was going straight to his head, but there was something captivating about the way that Draco was casually leaning against the wall, making conversation with him like they were old friends, like Draco wasn't the heartless bully who had relentlessly tormented Harry and his friends back in school. Maybe Draco had never really been the person that Harry had made him out to be, or maybe the war had just changed some aspects of his personality. Regardless, Harry had to admit it was nice being around someone who wasn't constantly fussing over him, or trying to fix some part of him that needed time to heal on its own.

Draco finished what was left in his whiskey glass and then took a deep breath, as though he were gearing up for an important conversation.

"Look, Potter, the wand isn't the only reason I'm here." He brought his eyes back down to the floor, averting Harry's gaze once more.

"Oh?"

"Yes, I wanted to talk to you about... that night, in the room of requirement." Harry's memory jogged, and he recalled where he had smelled Malfoy's cologne before. He thought of Draco gripping his waist for dear life as they escaped the fiendfyre in the room of requirement on a broomstick. Harry had found Draco's choice of applying cologne a bit odd given the circumstances, which is why it remained in his memory now. Draco now looked the most uncomfortable Harry had ever seen him, and Harry had to admit it was a welcome change from his usual, casual arrogance.

"What you did - Saving my life in there - You didn't have to do anything, but I'm grateful for your actions nonetheless, and if I wasn't -"

"I appreciate the sentiment, Malfoy, but don't thank me for saving your arse," Harry said, cutting Draco off. "I wasn't about to watch you die in there. Not because of some bloody mistake your friend made."

Draco looked up at him briefly, then brought his eyes back down to his firewhiskey.

"I owe you a debt," He said quietly.

Harry remembered thinking about this matter right after he had rescued Draco from the flames, and had considered the possibility of Draco being indebted to him as Pettigrew had been when Harry had spared his life. They clearly both knew of the power that such a magical bond could create between them, but Harry didn't feel anything like he had when he had chosen not to take the life of his father's old friend. He and Malfoy were both trapped in the room together as the flames were surrounding them on all sides, and saving Malfoy's skin felt just as natural as trying to save his own. Malfoy was a desperate boy in a perilous situation who was trying to escape death, just as Harry had been. Besides, any debt that Malfoy might have owed Harry surely would have been repaid in the next couple of hours of that night when his own life was spared for the sake of Draco's.

"Have you talked to Hermione about that?" Harry asked him, opening up the cabinet in the kitchen and digging for another bottle of firewhiskey. "About a life debt?"

Malfoy took a seat at the kitchen table, running his finger lazily across the rim of his empty glass. "She said I should speak with you."

"I don't know if you knew this," Harry began, not really sure what was bringing him to say this, but feeling like the words would help Draco understand what he, Ron, and Hermione had determined about the subject. "Your mother, in the forest when Voldemort tried to kill me, she told him I was dead. She knew the only way she would be able to see you again is if Voldemort had won. She knew I was alive, but she risked her own life to save mine. All for your sake."

Draco was looking into Harry's eyes, and Harry noticed that they weren't all grey; there were hints of green towards the middle of his pupils. He was just now realizing that they suited him nicely. Draco cleared his throat suddenly, and brought his eyes back down to the glass.

"Wish she had told me that in her letter, it would have saved me a visit to your terrible pub."

Harry laughed, pulling a fresh bottle of whiskey out from the cupboard and unlocking the wire cage around the opening. Instead of opening like the other bottles, however, this one let out a shrieking noise and exploded, sending shards of glass skidding across the kitchen, and several slivers into Harry's hand.

Harry swore loudly, quickly throwing the bottle in the sink and examining his hand. To his surprise, Draco, who had stood up instantly when the bottle had shattered, was now at his side, wand outstretched. "It must have been a prank bottle Fred and George planted," Harry explained, feeling the familiar wrench of pain in his gut when he spoke Fred's name, and at the same time trying to avoid looking at his hand, which had several bits of glass lodged in it and was leaking blood freely onto the floor. "Fuck— Go see if you can reach Hermione by floo powder, her healing spells are really excellent— "

Before he could finish speaking, however, Draco was holding the Hawthorne wand over his affliction, muttering some of the healing incantations that Hermione often employed, but also several spells that Harry had never heard before. He winced as the shards dislodged themselves from his hand, and the wounds healed instantly, the blood and spilled firewhiskey disappearing from his trousers and the floor beneath them.

"Merlin," Harry breathed, his hand as good as new and an incredulous expression on his face. "Where the hell did you learn to do that?"

Malfoy secured his wand back in his pocket, casting his gaze to the sink to stare at the exploded remains of the bottle. "I've always wanted to be a healer. I studied for it on my own when we were in school."

"You're good. You're really good."

"Father would never hear of it."

Harry met his eyes again, and saw something he would have never looked for in Malfoy - Resentment towards his father, and the choices he had made on Draco's behalf. For some reason it was the most human Draco had ever seemed to Harry. He didn't think he had ever put himself in Draco's shoes and thought about the war from his perspective before now. He had been a boy, just like Harry, whose parents had dragged him into their side of the battle, forcing him to be exactly the kind of son Lucius would be proud of, but up until this point, Harry had always thought that was what Draco had wanted as well. It was as though a curtain were being pulled away, revealing an entirely unexpected character on the other side, a man who was driven, intelligent, humorous, and (Harry didn't quite know what this particular thought was doing in his head) honestly rather sexy. He couldn't help but wonder if things had not gone so wrong between them at school, maybe their relationship would have been completely different.

Malfoy's eyes flitted down to Harry's lips, and Harry felt a strange, tingling sensation in his body that had usually been reserved for his days spent with Ginny exploring the secret corridors of the castle. He was close enough that he could see every detail on Malfoy's face, and he knew exactly what the expression he wore meant. His breath hitched slightly, and it was like a wave of cool air had suddenly passed over him; his bare skin was forming goosebumps up and down his arms. Unbidden, an old, suppressed memory of Blaise and Draco in the Quidditch Locker Room over Christmas Break reemerged in his head. This time, however, Harry imagined himself in Blaise's place, on his knees in front of the tall, pale boy as Draco slowly thrust into his mouth, pulling his hair at the roots and moaning his name...

And then, out of nowhere, it was like a switch had been turned off, and the atmosphere in the room completely shifted.

"Fuck you, Potter," Draco spat, his eyes narrowing into slits.

"Sorry, What?" Harry stuttered, his head still spinning from the thoughts that were wandering through it seconds ago.

"I know what you're doing."

Harry paused.

"What are you talking about?" He thought for a horrifying moment that maybe Draco had been using legilimency to read his mind, but he dismissed this thought almost immediately. He would have known if someone was trying to get into his head; he could always feel it when Snape was practicing this in their occlumency sessions.

"You're fucking sick. You don't know me, you can't just take advantage of me because you have nothing else going on. You're just like the rest of them."

"Sorry," Harry spoke, incredulous. "I know I don't — What do you mean - ?"

"You knew. You knew about me and Zabini, we fucking saw you for christ's sake. You and Granger planned this after you saw the papers, it's all just some elaborate ploy to humiliate me..."

"Draco, I have no idea what you're on about," Harry answered honestly, his mind reeling from what Draco was accusing him of. "If this is about you being gay-"

Draco slammed his fist on the counter top, making Harry flinch. He swore loudly, running his hand instinctively over his slicked back hair, trying to regain his composure. It seemed like Draco would have happily aimed a punch at Harry's face instead.

"I'm not." He said in a quieter voice, noticing the shocked expression on Harry's face at his outburst. He exhaled slowly through his nostrils. "I'm not."

Harry slouched against the counter, moving his hands into his pockets and trying to avoid eye contact to alleviate some of the discomfort in the room.

"Right, then."

There was a pause that felt like an eternity in which both Harry and Draco stared straight ahead of them at the wall in the kitchen, trying to concentrate on the patterns of the floral arrangements depicted on the wallpaper to distract themselves from the situation at hand. Harry's mind was racing; he was trying to wrap his head around the thoughts that were now pouring in like tidal waves, trying to find some justification for why he was suddenly wanting to kiss Malfoy. He had always known he wasn't just attracted to girls, but had never actually acted upon the feelings he had about boys he had fancied before. He and Ginny had hardly spoken since the end of term, he hadn't had any kind of proper sex since 6th year, and he was probably just feeling lonely and stir crazy. To make matters worse, he couldn't help but acknowledge the excruciating sexual tension between himself and Draco, the chemistry that had probably been lying dormant for quite some time and was just waiting to be tapped into. He stared straight forward, trying to suppress what thoughts that he was able to block out.

After several long moments, Draco stood up a little straighter, exhaling deeply and adjusting the sleeves on his shirt once more.

"Right, then I guess I should be going - "

Before he had finished his sentence, Harry caught Draco's wrist with the dexterity of a skilled Quidditch player and pulled him into Harry's body, their lips crashing into each other. There was a brief, terrifying moment where all Harry could think about was the gravity of what he had just done, but his mind was soon unable to focus on anything except how fantastic it felt to have Malfoy's mouth pressed against his own. The smell of Malfoy's cologne mingled with the taste of his lips, a musky yet uniquely fresh scent that became more intoxicating by the second.

To Harry's surprise, Malfoy responded ardently to his advance, as though he had been anticipating that Harry would reach for him all along. He brought his hands into Harry's untidy hair, deepening the kiss and pinning Harry against the counter so he could instantly feel Draco's stiffness against his own. Harry's mind soared with elation, his body responding in turn, lust staking its claim on the remainder of his willpower. They became practically ravenous, urgency seeping out with each gasping breath as the two caressed each other's bodies. Harry moaned as Draco reached down to massage his cock through his trousers, and Draco bit down on Harry's bottom lip so hard that he nearly drew blood. Draco kept kissing Harry, one hand now exploring the muscles that Harry had built from Quidditch and Auror training under his shirt, and Harry responded by kissing him harder and firmly pushing Draco's lithe body against the wall so that Harry had complete control over him. He felt drunk, taking in all of the sensations and savoring the taste of Draco's mouth on his own. His hand fumbled for the clasp on Draco's belt, not entirely sure what he was about to do, but knowing that he wanted as little clothing as possible between the two of them. Draco let out a soft moan as Harry trailed his tongue down to Draco's neck, pressing a couple of wet, rough kisses into the pale skin he uncovered.

Draco broke away from him suddenly, his pupils the size of small moons, his gaze darting back and forth from Harry's mouth and his bespectacled, green eyes.

"We can't do this," he said quietly, staggering slightly back to the counter and composing himself as best as he could. "I shouldn't have come here. This never happened - You can't tell anyone."

Harry felt as though he had quickly come up from underwater, and struggled to wrap his mind around what Malfoy was now saying.

"What are you talking about?" He panted, his chest still heaving and his pants still uncomfortably restrictive below his waistband.

"We can't do this," he repeated, looking more flustered by the second. "I can't... I just can't. I have to go." Malfoy turned on his heel and began to make his way back into the hallway, his dress shoes clicking on the polished wood.

Harry started after him, opening his mouth to protest, but as soon as he had followed Malfoy into the hallway, there was a loud cracking noise letting him know the other man had disapparated.

Harry stood in the entryway, his hand still stinging from the glass that had sliced through it just a couple minutes ago. Malfoy had left without even taking his coat with him; the dark cloak was still hanging on the bannister in the entryway. He stared at the closed door ahead of him, trying to take deep steady breaths, wondering what he had done wrong.

He had just been voraciously, passionately kissing Draco Malfoy, like he hadn't kissed anyone else in his entire life. He didn't know what had brought it out of him, or how long he had been wanting to do that, or if it had really even happened... All he knew for sure was that needed more. There was a desperation, a longing to figure out what he should do next, but he had no idea where to begin understanding any of this. He stared at the door for several more, disbelieving minutes, and then walked back into his kitchen slowly, as though stumbling through a dream. The two glasses of firewhiskey sat on his kitchen table, next to the note addressed to him from Hermione. He picked it up quickly, realizing that Malfoy must have been referring to this letter when he mentioned his correspondence with Hermione earlier.

The letter was lighter than any of the other ones she had sent him over the last month, which was surprising as he had assumed she had millions of stories to tell him about the ancient temples they had visited, or detailed descriptions of the magical artifacts in museums she had seen.

There was only one page of parchment upon which he recognized Hermione's tidy scrawl. He skimmed through it quickly, ignoring the exchange of pleasantries and the "hope that he was sleeping better", and fixated on the section where he saw Malfoy's name.

_"I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but he's been through a great deal in the last few weeks. His father just got a life sentence in Azkaban, and his mother had to be admitted into St. Mungo's with a spell damage related heart condition. He's been forced out of his home so the ministry can investigate the Manor in light of Mr. Malfoy's sentencing. On top of all of that, Witch Weekly published an article last month about Draco's homosexual affair with an American professor. While we can all agree that that magazine is a load of rubbish, I think when that issue came out Malfoy lost the remainder of the support he had from his family and the community he grew up in._

_I'm not saying all of this so that you'll feel sorry for him, and I'm not even necessarily saying you should speak with him face to face. I'm just asking if you'll consider reaching out, because as much as I hate to admit it, I think you both have a lot in common._

_I've been writing to him since I read about his parents in the prophet, and I've told him I think it would be a good idea for you to meet. I believe his main concern is whether or not he owes you a life debt, which I know we discussed briefly after the war. He's also wanting his old wand back, if you're able to dig that out of your school belongings. Please let me know as soon as you've received this, as I've told him you'd be available this week for him to collect it._

_I've included his address below, in case you're wanting to write to him. Please let me know how you're doing, and give Ron and everyone else my love."_

The address that was scrawled at the bottom of the page was a room in the Leaky Cauldron, which must be where Draco was staying while his mother was in St. Mungo's. Harry set the letter down on the table. If anything, Hermione had just given him even more to think about, and made the entire situation with Malfoy even more confusing. Why hadn't he mentioned anything about his family? Harry felt a sinking feeling of guilt creep over him, and he wished more than anything that he could have a chance to take back the last half hour, or at least speak to Draco about any of this. Had Malfoy really just thought that he owed Harry a life debt, and come here in a meager attempt to arrange repayment? Or was there another reason he had followed Hermione's advice and wound up on Harry's doorstep, despite everything they had been through in their years at Hogwarts?

Harry wandered automatically back into the study, which he had found was the room he had the least trouble sleeping in. He had tried sleeping in Sirius's old bedroom, still adorned with the Gryffindor banners and pictures of scantily clad muggle girls pinned up all over the walls, but that just brought unwanted memories and even more guilt about everything that had happened during the war. He wished, more than anything, that he had someone he could talk about these things with, if only to get it off his chest. Someone who would listen quietly and offer helpful, well-guided advice without telling Harry they felt sorry for him. Then again, he didn't think he would tell another living soul what had just happened between him and Malfoy. He wasn't sure he could even fully reconcile that with himself.

He laid back down on the couch in the room, staring at the ceiling and trying to get his mind off things. His eyes were finally beginning to drift shut, merely out of exhaustion, but in the back of his mind he couldn't stop thinking about why Malfoy had left when he did, or what he must be doing now. Did he plan for things to happen the way they did? Had he been wondering what that kiss would have been like since their 5th year, as Harry had?

A light rain began to beat against the windows outside, and the soothing rhythm of it was finally enough to lull Harry into a quiet, dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Still don't own Harry Potter, still wish I did. This one is a little long, but hope it doesn't bore you to death. Thanks for reading! Drop me a line if you're enjoying yourself because that seriously keeps me writing and brightens up my day/week/month/decade.

**Chapter 2**

_"Before I knew you, I lived in the rearview_

_To wish back an image of myself I thought was true_

_So now when colors fade and on that day of days_

_I needed you to say it wasn't one to rue"_

_-Tall Heights, Horse To Water_

June, 1998

Draco apparated onto a dark, empty corner of the street outside the Leaky Cauldron, and immediately realized that something was wrong. An aching, stinging sensation was spreading down his arm, the cloth of his sleeve becoming damp with blood. He ducked under the awning of an empty storefront, stumbling back against the door as a sudden wave of pain washed over him. Wincing and nearly doubled over, he retrieved his wand from his pocket, quickly ripping off his shirt and examining the wound. It was deep, much deeper than he had treated on himself before. He took a deep breath and began to administer some of the charms he had used just moments ago in Potter's house, trying not to think of the look of amazement on Harry's face when Draco removed the glass shards from his hand with magic. Healing was something he knew, something he had been practicing for years. There was something comforting about the knowledge that no matter what happened, no matter how badly Draco had been physically injured, he at least had this ability to carry around with him. It made him feel significantly less vulnerable.

He sank down to the pavement and ground his teeth together to stop himself from crying out as his vision started to blur. With stars swimming in front of his eyes, he thought back to the last time he could remember being in this amount of pain, when he had come home from Bennett's flat well past midnight to find his father waiting up for him with a copy of the dreaded tabloid publication that had somehow found its way into the manor. His mother had still been at home; right after the war they had hired a healer to stay with her full-time and supervise her condition as she recovered. Lucius would attend what he would learn was his final trial at the ministry the next morning. The man had been drinking heavily, his long blonde hair stringy and unkempt as it had often looked this past year, and his eyes were glazed over, out of focus. Draco had known instantly that it had been a mistake to come home.

He had been caught only once before this, when Zabini's parents had found both their son and Draco in their lake house when presumably everyone had been away on holiday over Easter break. Lucius had been more humiliated than angry when he found out, but as only two, pure blooded wizarding families were involved, it was an easy enough incident to brush under the rug. Draco could tell immediately that this time was going to be different. The atmosphere in the room was both tense and unbearably silent, and Draco had been filled with an overwhelming sense of dread as he realized what was coming.

Lucius hurled the magazine at his son when he walked into the room, upsetting the glass of whiskey that had been resting on the table. Draco had offered no explanation; he had not seen what had been published yet himself, although he felt his heart physically sink in his chest when he saw his own face next to Bennett's on the cover. He had been quiet, swallowing the embarrassment and betrayal that rose like bile in his throat, and had not defended himself when his father began delivering blow after blow to his face, his stomach, his chest, then kicking him again and again until Draco was coughing blood onto the stone floor of the room. He braced himself for each impact, trying as hard as he could not to whimper as the final kick landed in his ribs and he was sure he felt something crack.

Draco never argued with his father when he was in one of these moods. He always kept as silent and composed as possible and waited for it to be over, making sure his mother never overheard what was happening, as he had always been quite sure it would break her. Lucius reserved this particular method of abuse only for his son, and made sure to remind Draco at every opportunity that Narcissa would be devastated if she learned of his unnatural, disgusting habit of getting men into bed with him, of the fact that they would never have an heir to carry on the family line unless Lucius was able to stamp out this vile tendency of Draco's while he was still young. All he was able to do, however, was to break down his son's will to fight back, to make Draco feel the same revulsion, the same hatred for himself that his father harbored towards him. Lucius couldn't change who Draco was in love with any more than he could change the weather.

That night in particular, Draco went to his bathroom upstairs and treated his own wounds, using the healing herbs and potions in his school trunk and his mother's wand for some of the surface level injuries. He had to fish out a bottle of Skelegrow from his belongings, taking a couple swigs and letting an entirely new painful sensation flood through his body as his bones repaired themselves throughout the night.

Now, only a little more than a month later, he was having to heal the same bones all over again from a botched disapparation. Draco winced as his skin began to weave itself back together in front of his eyes, the pain making him tremble as he gripped his wand, trying his best to concentrate on repairing the wound. He wouldn't be able to fix this completely on his own; he would need to pick up some potion ingredients in Diagon Alley.

After a couple excruciating minutes, Draco was able to catch his breath, opening his eyes to look at the streets around him. It had begun to rain outside. Muggles were walking back and forth quickly, clutching umbrellas and scampering through the streets like children, trying to get inside before they had become completely soaked to the bone. Draco stood up slowly, picking his black shirt up from the ground beside him and muttering a quick cleaning spell to rid it of the blood he had soaked it in. He didn't mind the rain. It was cleansing, it would rid him of the shame he felt from everything that had happened today.

He should have known better than to let himself be alone in a room with Potter, and he should have thought twice about disapparating right after breaking off a passionate kiss with him. He should have arranged another way to get his wand back, or maybe even asked Granger if she could help get it for him. She probably would have been able to tell him if he owed Harry a life debt as well, or at least provide some of the information he was missing about his mother. At the same time, however, Potter had kissed him, not the other way around. He couldn't forget the look on Harry's face when he had decided to do so, those beautiful, green eyes fixed with determination, his jaw clenched, and his body pulsing with desire. All of the blood was leaving Draco's head again just thinking about it. He'd been picturing the scene that had just taken place in his mind for at least five years, ever since he realized that his feelings of jealousy for Potter were really less about envy and more about the angst-ridden infatuation he had felt towards the boy, which had only grown each year that they had known each other.

Potter was everything that he had always wanted; he was marvelously handsome, charismatic without even trying, one of the bravest people his age that he had known, and, as it turned out, an absolutely _fantastic_ kisser. If it hadn't been for the overwhelming sense of guilt that was associated with the kiss and his current relationship with the very man who had gotten him into the mess with his father, he would have stayed. He would have stayed and kissed Harry until his lips were raw, until he couldn't stand any longer, until the world ended and the universe collapsed in on itself. But in doing so, he was betraying someone who had done so much for him already, who had saved his life countless times in the last two years, and who had been trying to reach Draco nonstop since his father had beat the living daylights out of him.

He shook his head violently to ward off the regret and frustration he was feeling, buttoning up his shirt now that his arm was temporarily healed. He realized as he fastened the buttons that he had left his coat at Potter's house, and now didn't have any hope of retrieving it. He would die of embarrassment if he had to repeat this particular errand once more.

...

The rain had begun to pick up, and by the time he set foot on the familiar cobblestone of Diagon Alley, his hair was completely drenched and sending drops of water down his neck and into his muddled shirt. He walked down the alley, past the boarded up shops and vacant buildings that had become all too common since the war, and stopped outside the apothecary, casting a quick drying spell to make himself presentable. Inside, it smelled as it always did, of dirt and sulphur and disgusting ingredients Draco didn't want to identify. He wrinkled his nose slightly, but otherwise ignored the familiar stench.

The walls were stacked from floor to ceiling with bottles, vials, and flasks, and there were barrels all around the store holding spare ingredients, herbs, and fungi. The shopkeeper hollered from the back of the store to "let him know if you needed help finding something", and Draco began searching through the boxes and barrels of ingredients for some dittany he could use for his shoulder. He had finally found the section of boxes labeled "healing herbs" when someone cleared their throat rather loudly over his shoulder. Draco turned around, a handful of the magical herb grasped in his fingers, and found the large, gruff looking, and bearded shopkeeper, who didn't at all look pleased to have a customer.

"We don't serve your lot here," he said in a slow, growling voice.

Draco blinked several times, sure that he had misheard the man.

"Sorry?" He clenched his wand in his back pocket, not sure he would be needing it, but having it ready just in case.

The shopkeeper remained frowning, pointing his finger at the door.

"You heard me. We don't sell to death eaters. Get the hell out of my shop." Draco glanced down at his shirt, seeing that his left forearm had been exposed, something he normally tried very carefully to keep hidden. He had forgotten all about it in the buzz of adrenaline ensuing his splinching.

Two years ago, or even last summer, Draco would have put up a fight worthy of an angry Hippogriff if someone had treated him as such. Now, however, his pride had been so irreconcilably damaged by everything that had happened that he couldn't muster the energy to do anything but adjust the buttons on his sleeve, toss the dittany into its container with a bit of a flourish, and deliver the shopkeeper a pointed glare.

"You'll regret this," he said as he left the shop, not really meaning anything by it, but just wanting to seem as though he had some kind of upper hand in the situation. He heard the burly shopkeeper shout something along the lines of "rot in hell" as the door slammed behind him.

Splendid. He would have to make do with something else. He thought about trying out one of the potion shops in Knockturn Alley, but last time he was there, the owner had forced him to take home a mysterious vial containing a sapphire blue liquid that had just hit the market, urging him to try it out and let him know if he would be interested in selling some. Apparently it induced a "euphoric state unlike anything he would ever experience." He knew a trap when he saw one, and didn't want to be forced into the role of a black market peddlar unless it was absolutely necessary.

Deciding that his home remedy option list was exhausted for the time being, he returned to the Leaky Cauldron, bounding up the creaking stairs to his room once he was finally out of the rain, and fastening each of the three spell-proof locks he had purchased once he had closed the door. The silence that greeted him in the room was almost deafening. The pub was empty downstairs, and there weren't any other long-term tenants that Draco knew of who were renting out rooms upstairs. Draco took a great, heaving breath, glancing briefly at himself in the mirror above the vanity. The circles under his eyes looked worse than they had in weeks. The rain had ruined the sleek, well-kept look of his hair; it was no longer holding the spell he had placed on it before arriving at Potter's.

Potter. Harry fucking Potter. He bit his lip, trying to repress the thoughts of Harry's casual, lopsided smile, the effortless laugh that Draco had accidently coaxed out of him a couple times, the look in his eyes right before he kissed Draco. He had wanted Harry so badly for almost all of his life, just not like this. Not when his whole world was in a state of flux, when the foundations of his entire existence were crumbling in front of his eyes. Everything was falling apart. His family, his relationships, his reputation... It was all too much for him to handle. In an overwhelming surge of rage he punched the mirror above the vanity as hard as his strength would allow him to. Shattered glass rained down on the dresser and the books he had stacked on the floor. His fist was stinging with pain, but he ignored it, hurling the rest of his possessions off of the desk and aiming a hard kick at the bedpost.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to make it all go away; he wanted to wake up and have this all be a terrible, fleeting dream that would leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

He reached in the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a bottle of brandy he had procured from the bar downstairs, taking several swigs until he couldn't feel the pain caused by any of the injuries he had sustained today. He drank until he couldn't feel the pain of anything else in his life, either.

...

It was nearly dusk when he left the Leaky Cauldron again. The rain had finally subsided, the air replaced with a thick fog that fell like a billowing cloak over the streets of London. Draco had done his best to heal his minor cuts and bruises from the day. He was freshly showered, shaved, and had fixed his hair so that it was cooly smoothed back, once more. He had to admit that dressing as though he still sauntered around a mansion and was doted upon by house elves helped him walk a little taller down the street, and feel a little more like his old self.

He strode up to the front of the abandoned department store that concealed the entrance to St. Mungo's Hospital, heading up the staircase to the fourth floor. When he got to the small reception area for the floor, however, he stopped in his tracks, recognizing a familiar face seated in the wooden chairs of the waiting room.

Bennett was holding a bouquet of colorful flowers, and looked like he had just woken up from a nap when Draco had closed the door from the stairwell. He stood up slowly, placing the flowers on the chair he had been seated in.

"What are you doing here?" Draco demanded, looking around him nervously for people that might have noticed the tall, handsome man waiting in a reception area for terminally ill patients that everyone knew included his mother. "How long have you been here? She didn't see you, did she?"

Bennett shook his head at this, pointing to the flowers he had brought in. "No. I thought you could bring these in for her, it might brighten up her room."

Draco ignored him, disregarding the kind gesture and the cadence of his American accent he had always found so irresistible. His mind was still racing from the shock of seeing Bennett here. They hadn't spoken face to face since an explosive fight they had had the night of his father's indictment, in which Draco had admittedly projected some of the rage he felt towards his situation onto this man, who had been by his side through all of it.

"So you thought you could just march right into the hospital where my mother is being treated for a heart condition? Are you insane? Do you know what it would do to her if she saw you?"

Bennett took a step back, looking rather hurt by Draco's words.

"You weren't responding to my letters. I tried coming by earlier this morning to talk to you, but you weren't at the inn."

"Bennett, you can't just—" Draco stopped himself mid-sentence, looking around the room to make sure no one could hear them. The witch at the reception desk had gotten up briefly, and there was no one else seated in the waiting area. It appeared as though they were alone, but Draco still knew better than to discuss these matters in a public area. He jerked his head towards the entrance to the stairwell, so that they could have this conversation somewhere a little more private. Bennett obliged, following him and closing the door to the 4th floor behind them.

"Draco, the medical research position you were looking at, the one at Ilvermorny just opened up. I recommended you, I thought that you'd be- "

"You shouldn't have done that."

"Draco, we talked about this. It's what you always wanted to do, and through the university you won't have to worry about any of the financial aspects while you're earning the degree -"

"Look, I don't need your handouts, Ben."

"It wouldn't be a handout. You would have to pass the entrance exam on your own, I'm hardly doing anything but pulling a few strings."

"I never asked you to do any of that."

The older man let out a long sigh, moving in a little closer and lowering his voice.

"Look, I know it hasn't been easy, with everything going on. I can't imagine what any of that must be like, but I'm on your side, Draco. It would be better, in America. There wouldn't be any of this pressure... We could be together." He tried to place a hand on Draco's arm, but Draco moved it out of his grasp.

"I told you before - I can't. I can't just leave, it's not as simple as that."

Bennett looked at him with those warm, chocolate coloured eyes and Draco couldn't help wondering if he was still in love with him. Bennett was charming, intelligent, and had represented everything that Draco had wanted at a point in his life where nothing else made sense. He was considerably older than Draco, which had been part of the thrill when they had first started sleeping together the summer before his 6th year. He had let Draco stay in his flat in London when Draco couldn't bear to be in his own house. He had encouraged Draco's pursuit of being a healer, providing him with the academic resources and information he would need to continue in his education while he was in school. He had been the person that Draco could run to when he was feeling desperate, or horny, or lonely, or was just wanting an escape from reality for any amount of time. Yes, Draco had entertained the idea of leaving with Bennett when he finished his last semester teaching Wizarding Law in London. He had thought of starting all over in America, getting another chance to be the kind of person he had always wanted to be. He thought of settling down in a cozy New York apartment with Bennett and drinking tea with him every evening as he went over his lecture notes, and Draco studied for his medical exams. It was the kind of life that was too perfect for him to imagine himself living. There was nowhere in that world for the guilt of leaving his mother in an institution in London. Now, as crazy as it sounded in his head, a subconscious part of him didn't want to be a continent away from Harry Potter.

"I'm sorry," Draco said softly, trying to stop the memories of their relationship from affecting the decision that needed to be made.

Bennett narrowed his eyes slightly, moving aside the collar on Draco's shirt to glance at his neck. "What the hell is that?" He asked, pointing to a vaguely brown indentation that Harry's lips must have made on his neck earlier that morning. "Are you serious? You're already seeing someone?"

Draco looked behind him, wary of anyone who may happen to overhear their conversation.

"Look, Bennett, I can't do this right now. I need to go see her."

"Did this even mean anything to you?" Bennett asked, desperation dripping from his words.

"Please - I don't have time for this."

As he turned to leave, Bennet caught his forearm in a way that jolted Draco's memory back to Potter kissing him. He looked into Bennett's eyes again, imagining Harry's in their place, and realizing how incredibly unfair he was being to this man who had shared nearly two years of his life with him.

"Draco, please just answer me." He held Draco firmly by the crook of his arm, the pain and frustration evident in his voice. "I just need to know it wasn't a waste."

Draco sighed, looking down to the ground and back up at him again. He was a broad, strong man with perfect bone structure and an impeccable waistline. He checked off all of the boxes that Draco was looking for physically, which was part of the reason he had pursued him in the first place. His demeanor, on the other hand, was soft and kind - he was as considerate and passionate as he was thoughtful. Draco didn't want a man this perfect to be squandered on someone like him.

"I meant it," he said, knowing that he at least owed Bennett the truth. "I did at the time. I just can't be what you want me to be."

He pulled his arm away from Bennett, disrupting the sleeve of his jacket in doing so.

"Your wand," Bennett said, his eye catching the dark, carved wood tucked into Draco's jacket pocket.

Draco had to stop himself from rolling his eyes in frustration. Of course something like this would happen to him today. He hadn't anticipated running into Bennett here, otherwise he would have changed it out with his mother's wand which she was allowing him to use since she had been in St. Mungo's. It didn't take long for the gears to start turning in Bennett's head.

"It's Potter, isn't it?"

The pleading expression on Bennett's face had faded, and was replaced by a stiff, clenched jaw. Draco noticed a vein pulse in his neck.

"What are you talking about?" He scoffed, trying to behave like he wasn't thinking of Harry's lust-ridden eyes, or his chiseled stomach, or his perfect arse that Draco had spent hours upon hours evaluating during Quidditch games and in between classes in the corridors at Hogwarts...

"No, it all makes sense." Bennett turned around, pinching his forehead as though nursing a headache. "You completely vanishing out of nowhere, avoiding me and lying to me and then showing up here with marks all over your neck -"

"Don't make this about you, Ben. I can't handle this right now."

"Just tell me I'm wrong, Draco."

There was a beat. Draco glanced around in the stairwell, feeling more trapped than he had in the past couple of weeks. He shouldn't have to justify what had happened at Potter's house to a jealous boyfriend when he was trying to visit his mother in the hospital. He was going through hell, and all Bennett seemed to care about was whatever notions he had about the monogamy of their relationship.

"I've hardly been anywhere except here, the inn and the ministry in the last 4 weeks, and I've been more fucking miserable then I think you can even begin to understand, Bennett."

"So you slept with Potter."

"No! I never even- " Draco exhaled sharply, stepping closer to the professor to ensure that everything he was saying was kept private. "It wouldn't have even mattered if I did. You gave those photos to the press, I don't owe you anything."

"God dammit, Draco, would you stop going on about that? It was an accident, I've told you a thousand times, someone lifted them from my flat during the court proceedings, I don't know how many times you want me to apologize to you..."

"You knew better than to be showing them off in the first place."

"Why? Is it illegal for me to want to be with you?"

He was standing so close to Draco's face that he could see each sunspot on his tanned, handsome face, the beginning of each dimple and crease which would slowly turn to wrinkles as the years began to stake their claim on his body. This would never have been a normal relationship, he had to remind himself. There was always a part of him that knew he couldn't be with someone nearly 10 years his superior before he had even graduated from school. Before he had even decided what he wanted to do with his life.

Draco took a long, drawn out breath, closing his eyes briefly so he could shut out the look of pained resignation on Bennett's face. The stairwell was small and echoey and smelled like cleansing spells. When he opened his eyes again, Bennett was still waiting expectantly for any acknowledgment of what had been said.

"Thank you for the flowers."

As he turned to leave Bennett remained silent, clearly accepting this as his dismissal. Draco retrieved the flowers from their seat in the waiting room and strode past the witch at the reception desk into the hospital wing.

...

The walls of the hospital, which were at one point quite cold and sterile, were covered with drawings that children had made for the influx of patients since the war had begun. Crayon scrawled families with owls and cats and house elves decorated the once white surface of the hallway, and the spaces in between were filled with colorful encouragements such as "get well soon!" and "feel better, mum!" The staff had done everything they could to make the walk to the spell damage ward a little less doleful, but despite their efforts the pictures served as a kind of melancholy relic in themselves. The families who had lost children or parents now had the gut wrenching, pictograph reminders of when hopes were high, of when the future may have diverged in a number of different ways.

There was a picture of his mother that the Bellamy child, a resident of the room down the hall, had drawn for her. Draco closed his eyes, trying to cleanse his mind of everything that had just happened so that he wouldn't be dragging his own problems into the room. His mother sat up in the bed when she heard the doorknob turn.

She was very pale and nearly skeletal, her long blonde hair pouring down over the pillows stacked under her head, but her eyes still lit up when Draco entered the room. There were several weeks worth of cards and drawings pasted to the walls around the bed, reminding Draco how long she had really been here.

"Draco, they're beautiful!" she exclaimed as he set the bouquet of lilies down on her bedside table, bending down to kiss her forehead. Her skin was burning to the touch, but he smiled as though he had not noticed.

She beamed at him when he kissed her head, which was really all that he had been hoping for to begin with. It had been a whirlwind of a month for her, with the sentencing of Lucius at the ministry, and the series of health complications that resulted from both the torture she had endured at the hands of Voldemort, and the stress of losing a husband to Azkaban. Draco hadn't even told her about the financial stress weighing down on him from the legal fees and medical expenses, or that the ministry had seized their home for investigation, and was forcing him to live in the Leaky Cauldron and pay for his room out of pocket until they finally relinquished the possession of the mansion back to him. He couldn't help but feel that they were biding their time with the inspection simply to punish him for the role the Malfoys had played during the war.

"How are you?" he asked, taking a seat at the foot of her bed. "You look wonderful."

A little lying never hurt anyone.

"Don't be silly," She smiled again at his words. He noticed that some of the color had returned to her face since he had been in the room. "I've been resting and doing little else, I can't look any different than the last time you were here."

"That was yesterday, mum. You definitely look better than yesterday." She laughed softly, picking up the bouquet of flowers and setting them in her lap.

"Did you bring any more books? Any letters from Lucius?"

Draco felt a pang of guilt when she mentioned the letters. In truth, his father hadn't written any letters. When the healer had spoken to Draco about how serious his mother's condition was, he had begun forging letters from Lucius, using a simple spell to transform his handwriting into that of his father's. He made it sound as though Lucius was living in the most comfortable and accommodating conditions possible, and that he missed his family more than anything. Lucius's ongoing silence surely confirmed that at least one of these facts was untrue, but Narcissa didn't need to know that.

"No letters yet, I'll get you a new book, though." He glanced at the pile of newspapers and magazines that had accumulated on top of the table. He knew it was highly likely she had read the article about him in Witch Weekly - it would have been hard to avoid at this point - but she still hadn't said anything about it. He had no desire to discuss with her either the fact that he was gay, or that he had been in a relationship with a man much older than himself, so they had both merely pretended as though nothing had happened.

"I got my wand back," he said, putting on a smile once more to reassure her that things were going well. "It works just as well as it did before. I'll be sure to bring yours back for you tomorrow."

"That's wonderful," She said, sitting up a little straighter in her bed. "Did the Potter boy have it that whole time?"

"I don't think he even remembered he had it, to be honest. He's not the most organized person in the world."

"I saw in the prophet he's in auror training, did he say anything about your father? Do you think he could help get a reduced sentence?"

"We're not friends," Draco said quickly. "I couldn't really ask."

Her face fell, and he felt a wave of anger that she was still so worried about the man who had compromised their safety, put them in a position where Voldemort could play with them like pawns, and then didn't even have the courtesy to write them and apologize.

He placed aside his own feelings about his father for a moment, composing his face once more and taking his mother's hand encouragingly.

"I'm sorry. I can talk to him again, see what I can do."

She tried to smile but then began to cough, grabbing a handkerchief that had been resting on the bedside table. He tried to ignore how bad it was starting to get, and looked away when she withdrew from the fit that had seized control of her body temporarily. The napkin now had several scarlet droplets of blood in it. The healer had explained to him that her internal organs had suffered an irreversible amount of damage from the curses that Voldemort and some of the death eaters had performed on her in the Spring, after Harry and his companions had escaped from Malfoy Manor. He himself had been chained in the cellar and tortured by some of the men that had once been his father's friends, but it was nothing near as bad as what Voldemort had done to his mother, surely to punish Lucius. He tried not to dwell on these memories, and instead did his best to suppress them with liquor or some other distraction as soon as they arose. It was difficult to ignore the effects of the war on his family, however, when they sat right there in front of him.

"Mother I wanted to talk with you about something," He said, squeezing her hand a little harder. "You saved his life, didn't you? In the forest?"

"Is that what he told you?"

"I thought I owed him a life debt, because of what happened in the room of requirement. I think he considers this an equalizer, as far as anything I might have needed to do to repay him."

She nodded slowly. Her eyes were glazed over as though she were deep in thought.

"I would have done the same for anyone, if it meant I could see you again. There was no use for the battle to continue if you weren't alive."

He squeezed her hand again, wishing once again that he hadn't left Harry's house like he did.

"I'll talk to him," He said, mostly to ease his mother's mind. "I'm sure he would want to help."

He had no intention of ever speaking to Potter again in his lifetime, but would say anything to make it seem like there was hope. She needed that more than anything right now.

...

It was nearly midnight when he closed the door to his room in the Leaky Cauldron once more. He had nearly forgotten the mess he had made earlier in the morning, the shards of glass lying around the room and splintered wood splayed across the floor like a tattered snowfall. He withdrew his wand and began to clean up what he could.

He caught a glance at himself in the shattered mirror, and started when he noticed the blood that had soaked through his shirt from the wound on his shoulder. He removed it quickly, examining the cut once more. He didn't have the money to check himself into St. Mungo's; he would have to find a way to get a hold of some dittany from Knockturn Alley the next morning.

The room somewhat clean, he lay down in the large, four poster bed and tried his best to sleep. He indulged himself in thoughts of what may have happened earlier that morning if he had stayed, recalling the taste and feel of Potter's lips on his own, and wishing that he had the strength to go back.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: If you've made it this far, thank you for reading! I appreciate you and hope you're enjoying yourself as much as I'm enjoying cranking these out. I had a lot of fun with sassy!Ginny in this chapter, mostly just because I love Ginny more than anything, but also I really feel like she understands Harry more than he thinks she does, and he definitely doesn't give her enough credit. Anyways, I'm hoping to update a couple more times this week, so stay tuned!

**Chapter Three**

_"Well I've been proud and_

_Lookin' in a mirror that's clouded_

_With smoke keeping me shrouded_

_Believing I'm fine_

_But you wipe clean_

_All of these illusions that ain't me_

_Now you've got me lookin' and I hate me_

_Where is my spine?"_

_-Birdtalker, Blue Healer_

August, 1998

Harry lowered his wand as the dummy exploded, his spell causing it to incinerate and the force of the blast scattering its contents across the training room floor. He felt the familiar heat from the spell on his face as the smoke wafted towards him, taking a second to appreciate the echo from the sound of his curse that reverberated throughout the chamber. He dodged the spells being shot by the other trainers, jumping to avoid a streak of red light that nearly grazed his foot, and dodging another spell near his head with a tactical roll that his trainer had taught him after a couple weeks of classes. His heart raced as he bounded back up to his feet, letting the adrenaline his body created guide him through the exercises.

There were never real curses being used on him. They were simulations being produced by the auror trainers that looked and felt very near to the real thing, but there was usually the part of Harry that was able to separate wartime from practice, to know he was still safe in his training environment. Sometimes, when he was in a perilous situation, he had used this strategy in reverse, pretending it was just like practice and then letting his instincts guide him to the right decision that needed to be made. The right spell, the right move, the gut feeling telling him to engage or to play it safe. It was what he had done throughout his whole life, with Quidditch, with his coursework, with the quest for Horcruxes and the defeat of Voldemort. A constant dance of practicing and acting on instinct.

He was learning, however, it was getting a bit harder for him to navigate through the muddled waters of training and real-life application of his magic as the days wore on. He was now both shadowing aurors on their missions and drilling for hours upon end in the ministry, and it was difficult knowing when it was appropriate to take his guard down. The result had been a mixture of adequate training intermingled with fleeting moments of terror that further reinforced Harry's need to be prepared for the worst. The phrase "constant vigilance" echoed in his head, reminding him that he was doing this to protect the people he cared about, not because it was easy. He had to succeed, because to fail would mean letting down those he had already died to protect.

"Good, very good! Now keep your senses about you, be looking out for unexpected obstacles!"

His trainer, a man named Curtis Fletcher who had been taught directly by Kingsley when he had first started in the Auror Department, was grading his performance and evaluating the methods Harry chose for their review session later. He was a good fighter and an even better teacher, and Harry appreciated how he never brought up the war or treated Harry any differently for the part he had played in it.

The encouragement from Fletcher bolstering his resolve, Harry set his jaw and continued on in the course, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.

The next barrier that Harry encountered burst into a wall of flames before he was able to scale it. He used his wand to cast a shield charm which protected his body from the heat of the flames, and took a running start before vaulting himself over the other side of the barricade. He ran down the next aisle of obstacles, skirting another jet of light and scaling a short, brick wall as quickly as he could, dropping nimbly to the other side, once again landing on his feet.

"Perfect execution, Potter. Keep it up!"

He paused when he got to the other side of the wall, because he realized almost instantly what the next challenge would be. It was a large wooden chest, held shut with thick leather straps. It opened before he had the chance to mentally prepare himself, or even to think about what form his boggart might be assuming since the war had taken place.

He started breathing heavily, rooting his feet to the ground and trying to control his shaking wand hand.

To his horror, it was not a dementor that climbed out of the trunk to greet him. It was Fred Weasley, his skin the color of fallen snow, and his eyes as lifeless as they had been when Harry had seen his body laid in the Great Hall. He was still wearing the smile that Harry had seen on his face when he had been killed. Behind him, Tonks emerged in the background, her hair the muted, dull brown color it had been during the last years of her life, not the bubblegum pink it had been when she was happiest. Remus Lupin joined her side, his robes tattered and shabby, reaching instinctively for Tonks's hand.

"How many boggarts did you put in here?" Harry shouted at Fletcher, his voice wavering slightly as he raised his wand. He tried to focus on the figures steadily approaching him, repeating the correct words in his head, but somehow still unable to move...

"Ridikulus," He muttered, trying to make the figures disappear before they could wreak further havoc on his mind. "Ridikulus!" he yelled, louder this time, but he knew that nothing would happen. He couldn't summon any kind of happy thought that would help him dispel these creatures. He was letting down the very professor who had taught him this spell in the first place. He was letting everyone down again and again, even after their deaths. Most of these people would still be alive if it wasn't for him.

The walls started closing in on him, and he realized slowly what was happening. His head was spinning, he saw stars in his peripheral vision, and then, before he could stop himself, he collapsed.

...

Harry came to in a brightly lit room, Fletcher dabbing a wet cloth on his face. He sat up quickly. He had been levitated into a hospital bed in the recovery quarters of the auror training office.

"Not bad, Potter." Fletcher said approvingly. "Your training is paying off, we just need to iron out some of the more difficult exercises. It's perfectly normal for those who have experienced some of the things that you have."

"Er... Thanks." Harry said, not really sure of how to handle this situation.

"It wouldn't hurt to get you over to see a ministry doctor, probably. You know, for some of the trauma."

Harry blinked quickly, clearing his throat.

"Sorry, a doctor? I'm fine, Curtis. Really. I just need a bit of time, I think."

Fletcher smiled encouragingly.

"I'm sure." He stepped around to the desk, on the other side of the room, pulling out the paperwork for Harry's discharge. "Why don't you take the afternoon off? You've done an excellent job today. Go get some rest, and we'll start again in the morning. Alright?"

Harry nodded, standing up and getting his bearings once more. He couldn't help feeling as though the tone Curtis was taking was a bit condescending, although that may have just been his own insecurities plaguing the conversation. He began to leave the room, but turned around once more before he had left.

"Curtis, don't cut my training schedule because of this. I'm willing to do what it takes, and I'll work out all the personal stuff on my own. Please."

Fletcher placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, his kind eyes glinting with reassurance.

"Potter, we haven't had someone in the department with as much promise as you in decades. We're not about to let someone like that just walk away."

Harry beamed, trying to suppress the insecurities plaguing his thoughts.

"Now take care of yourself. That's an order. Alright?"

Harry tried his best to force a smile.

"I won't let you down, sir."

...

Diagon Alley was almost a completely different place than it had been when Harry had first visited with Hagrid to purchase his school supplies in his first year of Hogwarts. Many of the storefronts were abandoned, their dark windows or boarded up entrances casting an eerie glow on a place that had once seemed like a magical wonderland to Harry. He walked down the cobblestone road from Gringotts to the Leaky Cauldron, where he had agreed to meet Ginny when he found out he would be free from training for the rest of the day.

The two had only seen each other a handful of times since the battle at Hogwarts. He knew she needed space to heal and process things; her method of grieving was not too different from his own. He had definitely created space for himself to heal, as well, though recent events were causing him to wonder if maybe he had made too much space. It was August, and he knew Ginny would be needing to get her school things eventually, so he offered to spend the afternoon with her in Diagon Alley collecting what she needed for the year.

She was sitting in a corner of the dingy pub, wearing a playful, dark blue sundress that hugged her curves like it was created to single-handedly seduce all of the men in Britain. Her long, red hair was tucked behind her ears, and the darkened freckles on her nose gave her a sort of golden, ethereal glow. She wasn't even trying to look beautiful, Harry could tell. She had thrown on a dress to detract attention from the bags under her eyes, which seemed to be a kind of universal indicator of suffering since the war had taken what it did from the wizarding world.

"Merlin, Gin you look gorgeous," he said as he approached her. She stood up, pulling him into a hug. Her hair had it's usual flowery scent, and Harry held her a little longer than usual just so he could take it all in.

"Wish that was why people were staring," she muttered, sitting back down in her chair. She had ordered a small plate of chips, and had a butterbeer for each of them on the wooden table.

"Are you sure it's not? He asked, grinning. It was nice to be back to their normal, casual banter that didn't include flashbacks from the war. "That dress is nothing to be trifled with."

"Glad we both agree," she laughed, popping one of the chips on the platter in front of them into her mouth. "This dress could commit murder and walk away like it was nothing."

"I've missed you." He said, scooting in a bit closer and stealing one of the chips on the table. Ginny was definitely right about the staring. He had avoided being out in public as much as possible since May, and that had been one of the reasons why. Even walking into the pub, there had been about 6 or 7 individuals who had whipped their heads around to catch a second glimpse of him. Here in the Leaky Cauldron, there were families all over the sitting area whispering to each other and pointing at him and Ginny. He had always been used to a certain level of publicity within wizarding communities because of his scar, but it had definitely gotten worse since the war.

"Maybe they're just surprised we're real, human beings who have to eat real food, and not robots created by the ministry to save the world," Harry offered.

"Oh, that's bollucks. The ministry could never design robots as charming and intelligent as ourselves."

Harry chuckled, staring subconsciously at the stairway to the inn upstairs. He wondered if Malfoy was still staying here, if he could potentially be upstairs at this very moment. The thought of that sent butterflies flying madly inside Harry's stomach.

He hadn't been able to escape that moment with Malfoy in his dreams, which, he had to admit, was a pleasant exchange for the nightmares he had been having since the war. Each time his subconscious visited the event Draco and himself got a little further, and Harry would awake with a stiff erection that could only be facilitated by finishing the scene in his head, fantasizing about a million different endings to what had started in his kitchen. It was undeniably confusing, and often made him wonder . The worst was that he was sitting here with Ginny, someone he loved and respected and definitely envisioned having a future with, and his eyes kept wandering up the staircase like he could see Draco standing naked at the top of it.

He sipped his butterbeer, pulling himself away from the daydream he had been having. Ginny was talking about which stores she would need to go into to gather her school supplies. He listened attentively, nodding in recognition as she was speaking and muttering things like "mhm," and "yeah, of course" under his breath until he realized that Ginny was waving a hand in front of his eyes.

"Harry, I just asked you if you would get Kreacher's face tattooed on your arse."

"Sorry, what?"

"You said yes, so if I were you I'd get that appointment set up straight away."

"Gin, I'm sorry," Harry sighed, trying to wipe his mind clean of everything besides the conversation they were having. "I've just been...distracted lately. There's been a lot going on."

"You always do this." She laughed, pulling him to his feet and leaving a couple galleons on the table for the food and butterbeer, most of which were untouched. "Come on. Let's go for a walk."

...

The hot August sun was beating down on them overhead. Ginny walked besides Harry, passing the shop windows he had brushed by earlier. He tried to think, as he often did, of what might be on her mind. Her face revealed no emotions whatsoever, as it usually did. He knew that Fred's death had shaken her to her very core, but she didn't show it in the slightest. The only meager betrayal of her steadfast, unbreakable exterior was the tired look on her face, and the circles around her eyes. If he hadn't been sleeping well, he couldn't imagine what she was going through.

He wandered into Flourish and Blotts with her, helped her pick up potion ingredients at the apothecary, and then both of them gravitated naturally to Quality Quidditch Supplies, where they began browsing the shelves and investigating the new Firebolt Supreme prototype model. They didn't have to catch up on much, as both of them were quite content just commenting on the new features of the broom, or exploring the gadgets they could find on the shelves. Harry was shocked when he checked his watch and realized they had spent nearly 45 minutes in the Quidditch shop alone.

"Fancy a drink before you head back?" he asked, carrying the parcels with all of her school things out of the shop when they had finally decided they'd had enough.

"Hermione told me not to drink with you," Ginny smirked, linking her hands together and swinging them out in front of her while she walked, her short dress flowing in the gentle breeze. "So yes, I would love one."

"She has to stop telling people that. So far she's the only person I haven't drank with."

"Yes, but then you'll have to have the inevitable conversation about her not being your mother. That just can't go well, can it?"

"You have a point. We'll keep it between us, then."

He noticed her beaming at him out of the corner of his eye after he had spoken, and suddenly felt the surge of guilt that he had been trying so hard to push out of his mind. She was still very much in love with him. He could tell in the way she teased, the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't noticing. They had decided to put things on hold after the war, just to give both of them a little time to make sense of things on their own. How he had been feeling about Draco was deeply troubling in its own right, but now he was realizing that it could affect Ginny as well, should they continue on the path they were going down. He wasn't sure if he was ready for that kind of commitment right now, not with so many uncertainties in his mind.

"On second thought," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. "Maybe Hermione has a point. Why don't we turn in for the night, maybe do this some other time?"

"Oh?" Ginny's tone had changed, and Harry could tell he had hurt her feelings.

"Yeah, it's been loads of fun, though. I can help you carry these back to the leaky cauldron so you can floo home if you'd like,"

"Don't worry, I've got it." She took the parcels from him and gave him a very forced, unnatural smile. "See you round, Harry."

She strode away briskly, her flaming red hair flowing behind her in the breeze. Harry exhaled deeply, tilting his head back to look up at the evening sky. It was turning vibrant shades of orange and purple near the horizon as the sun began to set. This could have been such a beautiful night. He closed his eyes briefly, wishing more than anything that he could be someone else, someone whose mind was not troubled by traumatic nightmares or pale blonde boys who confused the shit out of him.

His snapped out of his trance almost immediately as a loud clicking noise sounded, accompanied by a bright flash. A reporter was now standing in the street in front of him, having likely just captured the front page for whatever tabloid they represented.

"The fuck are you looking at?" Harry bellowed, and the man retreated slightly, withdrawing his camera from Harry's face. Harry was reminded for a nauseating second of Colin Creevey. His mind instantly jumped to the image of the boy's corpse lying on the table in the Great Hall, right next to those of Tonks, Fred, Lupin, Lavender, and so many more of the people that had died for him that night.

"Piss off," he spat at the reporter. "There's your fucking headline."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Life got away from me this week! More updates coming tomorrow, however. Stay tuned. Disclaimer: While I love these characters more than I love a good mojito, they aint mine.

**Chapter Four**

_"It's only water, it's only fire, it's only love_

_It's only slaughter, we're only liars, it's only blood_

_They're only thoughts that I'm having - thoughts safe within my head_

_You're only crying, you're only dying, you're only late."_

_-It's Only, Odesza_

August, 1998

It was late afternoon, and the summer heat was finally lifting in Hogsmeade, the cool breeze filtering through the trees and whispering around the corners of the brick buildings. Draco headed south at the Hog's Head, approaching the largest apartment building in the village, which he had entered several times before to meet with a couple of the clients he had established in this small wizarding community. He entered through the heavy oak door on the side of the building, which led to the rickety, wooden staircase he followed up to the 6th floor.

He hadn't meant to get involved with this line of work; in fact, he had avoided it for as long as possible when he had been evaluating his options, trying to scrape enough money together to keep up with his mother's bills. He had sold most of the valuables he still had in his possession - some of his fancier clothes, some trinkets and rings he was able to take with him before the ministry had began their investigation on the manor - but it had never been enough. He was barely able to pay what he needed to keep his mother admitted in St. Mungo's, let alone the cost of staying in the Leaky Cauldron until he finally was permitted to return to the manor. He had even tried going back to his house a couple of times to see what artifacts he was able to nick from his father's study, but the protective charms the ministry officials had cast around the house wouldn't even permit him to enter the long driveway leading up to the estate. He was completely and irreversibly stuck.

He had gone into Knockturn Alley to procure some dittany and heal his splinched shoulder. Just as he had anticipated, the shopkeeper had approached him once more to ask him if he would be interested in selling any laethelixir, the bright blue liquid vial that he had been offered last time he was in the shop. Draco had refused, sure that he would be able to afford his expenses as soon as the ministry had sorted through all of his father's possessions in the manor, and added as much time on to his life sentence as they saw fit. The weeks came and passed, however, and he was only sliding deeper into debt and growing more and more desperate. He visited his mother every day, still managing to put on a smile and tell her whatever lies he happened to come up with (Potter was working with his contacts at the ministry to get Lucius another hearing, Draco had reconnected with a lovely, pureblood witch who was going back for her last year of Hogwarts in the fall), and then he locked himself in his room in the Leaky Cauldron and tried to not think about the fact that his mother was going to die, and that he was going to follow her to the grave much sooner than expected if he couldn't turn this around somehow.

It was with great reluctance that he ended up in Mulpepper's Apothecary only a couple weeks after he had purchased the dittany, requesting to speak with the shopkeeper about the opportunities he had available for a "sales associate". It was much easier of a process than Draco had anticipated; the job entailed visiting a list of clients that had already been compiled by several of the shop owners in Knockturn Alley, and taking whatever action necessary to avoid ministry workers and aurors. Draco would have to be quick on his feet and adaptive to ever-changing circumstances, as the ministry was currently going to great measures to investigate and stop the spread of this potion in the wizarding community. They claimed that, due to the addictive nature of the elixir, lethal overdoses were known to occur when the potion was administered improperly. Mulpepper denied this rumor most adamantly, insisting that none of the client base he had built had ever reported any such instance; it served as a fear-mongering tactic more than anything. Nevertheless, Draco would need to build his client list under the guise of a deliveryman for the bookshop adjoining the apothecary. The books he exchanged had been hollowed out to include a couple of the vials inside the covers to circumvent Ministry suspicion.

The repercussions of the war were leaving so many inside the community reeling in shock and despair, and the market for this type of quick fix potion had never been better. Draco had quickly found that word of mouth was making most of his commision for him - in most of the homes he delivered to, he would receive a name and address of a friend that was interested, which led to a grapevine of contacts almost faster than he was able to keep up. He had his regular client base and made his base salary off of the people who cycled through the potions every couple of days, and within a month he had started making enough money to break even with the amount of galleons he owed to both the hospital and the inn. It was steady, reliable work. He found himself spending more time making his rounds than sitting in St. Mungo's, but knew that he wouldn't be able to keep his mother alive more than a couple weeks if he wasn't working.

He rounded the stairwell to the landing of the 6th floor apartment building. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling above were flickering vaguely, casting eerie, pale blue projections onto the peeling wallpaper in the hallway. He knocked lightly when he reached Apartment 617, checking both ways to ensure that he was not being followed. To his surprise, the door was not opened by a client, but by a small child who couldn't have been more than 4 years old. He checked the note that he had scribbled down at his previous stop, making sure that he had the address right.

"Who are you?" The girl asked, holding onto the doorknob with both hands and swaying back and forth lazily in her faded purple nightgown. She had stringy, dark blonde hair and very large, brown eyes. Draco heard another child begin to start crying from within the apartment.

"I'm a friend of your mum's," Draco spoke, checking the note one more time. "Is she home by chance?"

"Are you our new dad?" the girl asked, keeping the door open only far enough for Draco to see into the entryway. It was filled with scattered laundry and what looked like piles of trash stacked against the walls. Draco blinked, slightly taken aback. He wasn't good with children; he didn't know how to respond to a question like this.

"No," he said, starting to wonder if this stop had been a bad idea. "Can you run along and get your mum for me?" The girl stopped swinging off of the door handle, and nodded quickly, shutting the door. Draco heard quick footsteps echoing down the hallway inside.

Draco took a step back, fishing around in his bag and sorting through his inventory, mostly just to distract himself as he waited. After several long moments, the door opened back up again, and a tall, thin woman stepped out, another smaller child propped on her hip. This child was red faced and sobbing quietly, tucking his head into his mother's hair as soon as he saw Draco waiting in the corridor.

"Are you Draco?" The woman asked, pulling her hair out of the child's tight grasp, and causing him to cry louder.

Draco nodded, keeping his book bag secured at his side. He was feeling more uncomfortable by the second.

"I'm so sorry," she said, referring to the child who was continuing to sob on her shoulder. "It's been a little rough - my husband was killed in the battle in May."

Draco swallowed quickly, trying his best to remain level-headed.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said, avoiding eye contact. He fiddled with the zipper on his bag once more.

"Look, are the potions - you know - safe for children?" She looked both ways up and down the hallway, even though Draco was sure there was no one else in the vicinity of their conversation. "My friend told me that he had given a bit to his son, that it seemed to help..."

Draco started to get a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and leave this place behind as fast as he could.

"I really couldn't say, I don't know." He zipped his back shut once more, taking a step away from the woman. The child on her hip continued to sob, his cries growing louder and louder by the second.

"Wait," she said, sensing that he was about to leave. "Don't go. I can pay you what you need, I have money." She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. It appeared as though she were fighting a cold, on top of everything else that was going on at the moment. "I just need help. Please."

Draco hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to another as he wavered on the spot. There was no guidebook for a situation like this, but he had a terrible feeling about this whole situation. He wanted to just disapparate from this building entirely - maybe catch a couple hours of sleep in his room at the inn - but there were rules for these types of situations. Besides, he couldn't just leave this woman to tend to her suffering children on her own. His involvement with the war, no matter how reluctant he may have been at the time, meant he owed her at least a courteous explanation, or a promise of some kind of other assistance.

"If you don't," she continued, pulling her hair back away from the child's iron grip once more. "I'll just get it from someone else."

He looked from her face to the crying child and back again, still visibly uncomfortable. What if his actions seriously injured one of the innocent and fatherless children in her home?

"Please?" She repeated once more.

He noticed that her eyes were the same color and shape as her daughter's.

"It's 10 galleons for a vial," he said, finally unzipping his bag and retrieving a couple of books from within.

...

The hospital was more crowded than usual as Draco checked in at the reception desk, walking down the familiar hallway to his mother's room at the end. He had decided to leave Hogsmeade after he had made his last delivery of the day. Rather than completing his circuit of regular customers as he was accustomed to on a Saturday evening, he went straight back to the Leaky Cauldron and took a long, hot shower, letting the steam from the water seep into his pores and wash off some of the guilt and revulsion from the day. He would like to have said it helped, but he could still feel the gravity of the situation he was in like an ever-present anchor tugging him slowly downwards, making him feel more desperate and trapped by the minute.

His mother was sleeping when he visited her room. Some days, the healers told him, were better than others; some days she had the strength to sit up and carry on a conversation with him like nothing was wrong, and other days she would barely stir from her sleep the entire time he was there. He sat down at the foot of her bed, hoping that she would recognize his presence, would want to sit up and talk to him about the books he had dropped off (the latest of which was a muggle novel called "Great Expectations", that she seemed to have enjoyed,) but she didn't stir when he brushed her hand lightly with his own.

There was a new drawing that had been placed on her bedside table. He picked it up and smiled at the two figures interpreted on the parchment - one of them very tall with long, straight hair and a smile on her face, and the second a small boy with vivid, yellow colored hair who appeared to be holding hands with the woman. It was a sweet picture, like many of the ones the child had left in her room before. Draco had met him a couple times when the child was being shepherded by his father around the hospital wing. His mother had taken a particular liking to him, always asking engaging questions and usually having a couple spare pieces of chocolate to share with the boy. Draco couldn't help but think that part of the reason his mother took such measures to be kind to the boy was that he reminded her of her own son, who was spending less and less time in the ward these days.

"Mum?" he said softly, hoping that she would wake up. He squeezed her hand lightly, but to no avail - she continued to sleep, her chest rising and falling slowly, rhythmically under the blankets.

He thought back to the young children he had encountered earlier that day, and a deep, overwhelming feeling of misery overcame him. He brushed away a tear as soon as he felt it on his face. He didn't want that to be the first thing his mother saw when she awoke.

"I'm sorry I haven't been round as much as I should have been," he said, pretending that she was able to hear him, mostly for himself. He could hear the clock ticking on the wall, and the healers bustling up and down the hallway. His mother was probably in a deep, dreamless sleep, not to be troubled by either his apprehensions or excuses. Regardless of whether or not she could hear him, he began to talk to her as he always did when he visited. He told her about his day, about what the weather was like outside, about all the things he was sure she would have wanted to hear about his father. It was therapeutic in a way, to lie to her in a way that made his circumstances seem much better than they were. He knew it always made her happy to hear these things, and it brought him some kind of perverted, nearly delusional satisfaction to hear the words coming out of his own mouth.

He stayed at the foot of the bed, his hand stroking hers gently for what felt like an hour, until a healer opened the door and mentioned that they would be wrapping up visiting hours shortly. He nodded in response, wiping another tear away from his cheek before wishing his mother goodbye, planting the usual kiss on her forehead as he left.

...

The shadows of the streets were growing longer as he returned to Diagon Alley. He had apparated, as he usually did, just down the road from the Leaky Cauldron, in hopes of finding something to bring back to the inn for dinner that wasn't fried bar food.

He halted mid-step as he passed the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies, advertising the new broom that could accelerate at twice the speed of the Firebolt. It wasn't the model broom in the window that caught his attention, however. It was a tall, dark haired wizard with round spectacles who was wearing a faded denim muggle jacket and examining one of the boxes lined up on the shelf nearest to the window. He instantly felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel, not dissimilar to the feeling of disapparation that he had just experienced moments earlier. He wanted to vanish again, to disappear from the street so he wouldn't have to have to be taunted by Potter's smug, handsome face through the window. He thought back to when Potter had kissed him, of the firmness of his grip on Draco's wrist but the nearly impossible tenderness of his lips... That memory had been what kept him moving forward, the single spark of happiness that he relied on when everything else seemed to be falling apart.

He stopped in the middle of the street, watching through the window for a couple moments, observing Potter, admiring the way he studied the Quidditch book in his hands, the way his eyes roved across the page, his brow furrowing slightly in concentration. Part of Draco wondered if there was any way he could wander inside without making it too obvious that he had found Potter here. He could casually pick something up off the shelf as well, pretending not to notice Potter, and then could pretend to be shocked that they were in the same store together. He wasn't sure what he would say - maybe he could make a crude joke about Potter always looking for a new broom to ride, maybe he could suggest that they grab a drink in the Leaky Cauldron together, and then they could just see what followed afterwards.

His fantasy was derailed only a moment after it had begun when a familiar, redheaded witch appeared around the corner of the aisle, holding a broom servicing kit and pointing out something to Harry on the box. He laughed, tossing his head back and placing the book in his hands back onto the shelf. She looked pleased with herself for eliciting such a reaction from him.

Of course. He had forgotten about the Weasley girl. Of course Potter had gone back to her; their relationship had been all anyone seemed to talk about at the end of his 6th year when Draco had far bigger concerns on his mind. He watched them through the glass, the way they were smiling and teasing each other, her short, blue dress that was clearly carefully chosen to attract his attention...

He couldn't take it anymore. He closed his eyes, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks and continuing to walk down the street. He focused on the furthest building in his line of sight and pressed on, disregarding the witches and wizards he passed on the cobbled road, not even flinching when a photographer captured his picture with a bright flash when he had almost reached the Leaky Cauldron. He didn't stop until he had reached his room, and had pressed his back against the closed wooden door. It was as if all of the pain he was feeling had led to this moment; he slid down to the floor, beginning to sob uncontrollably. He was struggling for breath, keeping his eyes squeezed shut tightly so he couldn't see the Laethelixir stacked in piles around the room.

He never imagined his life would end up like this. He was supposed to have gone to healing school, he wasn't supposed to be gay, and he was supposed to have parents who were both supportive of him and alive to care about him. He had every opportunity provided to him to accomplish great things, it had all gone wrong. He needed to think of a way to fix this without having to peddle off the rest of the supply surrounding him, the books stacked up 12 high on the desk and overflowing from boxes strewn around the floor. He had to find a place to live, and he had to get himself out of this mess.

After several minutes of slow, intentional breathing, Draco finally stood up, wiping the dust off of his slacks. As much as he loathed the idea of reaching out to someone else to fix his problems, he couldn't do this alone. He needed to ask for help, and he had no one else to turn to then the only living member of his family who wasn't dead, on their deathbed in St. Mungo's, or imprisoned in Azkaban. If he had learned anything from his father, it was that wizarding blood was more important than any other type of bond that could be formed. He only hoped that, for his own sake, his aunt still believed the same thing.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: For those of you who have stuck around and gotten this far in the story, thank you for your patience and interest in what I have going! This chapter took forever to write and is suuuper long, but I'm developing more of the plot and have some fun stuff coming around the corner. ;) Mind you, it'll get angsty and sad first. But bear with me.

Hope you're still enjoying, and feel free to drop me a line if you are!

**Chapter Five**

"Go on and tell me just what I'm supposed to say

As if it could be any other way

Oh, it's getting louder

Go on and tell me just how I could allow

All that's light to end up somehow

Where it's getting darker"

-Falling Water, Maggie Rogers

September, 1998

"Can you imagine, Harry," Ron said to his friend, trailing behind Ginny and Hermione as the boys helped them carry their belongings through King's Cross Station. "After everything we've been through, voluntarily signing up for another year of sitting through classes and stressing about exams? We've already saved the whole bloody world, what more could they possibly have to teach us?" Hermione turned around, a wide, plastic carrier in her hands that, as anyone could determine from the hissing and spitting issuing forth from the caged door, contained a very large and feral animal who did not enjoy being shoved into a box and carried through the station.

"It may surprise you to know, Ron," she said, shooting him a pointed look, "that not all of us want to be aurors."

"Yeah, but a fair few of us do," Ron responded, grinning as he pushed the cart holding Hermione's trunk through the crowds of muggles to Platform 9 3/4. "Dean, Seamus, Neville, Parvati - hell, you may be the only person from our year who's actually going back to school,"

"I honestly don't care," she said, turning around and continuing to walk through the station. "Some careers need more training than others."

"Do you hear that?" Ron said, looking at Harry again, an incredulous expression on his face. "She thinks she's better than us."

"Mhm," Harry muttered in acknowledgement. Ginny had glanced back at him momentarily, her hazel eyes meeting his for a second, and then she continued to look straight ahead, ignoring the conversation they were having.

After the evening they had spent in Diagon Alley, Ginny had asked to meet with Harry again, this time at The Burrow. It was a quiet Saturday afternoon. The rest of the family was at Shell Cottage celebrating Bill's birthday, but she had stayed behind, saying she wasn't feeling up to being around people at the moment. When Harry had arrived at the house he found her out in the garden, wearing her blue dress again and sitting lazily on an old, wooden swing that looked like it had seen better days. Everything around her was so, vividly green; the overgrown grass and hydrangea bushes creating a safe little haven in the Weasleys' backyard. If he hadn't had so much on his mind, Harry would have loved to lie down next to her in the grass until the sky turned dark and the clouds were replaced with stars. He wanted to talk to her about everything, but he feared that the second he told her about any number of the irrational thoughts going through his head, she would want nothing to do with him.

She had looked up when he walked into the garden, her face not as vibrant as it usually was when he found her.

"Hey," she said, planting her bare toes in the ground to stop herself from swinging. "Thanks for coming."

"Yeah, anytime," he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, a habit he had recently caught himself doing whenever he felt uncomfortable. "What did you, er... want to talk about?" He didn't have a better way of transitioning the conversation, and didn't think he could handle any small talk at the moment.

Ginny ran her fingers through the roots of her hair, sweeping it away from her face and making Harry wish he could bury himself in its sweet, familiar scent. He had been thinking about her constantly since he had gotten her letter. He missed her laugh, her sarcasm, her freckled shoulders and the curve of her hips - he hadn't been deluding himself into thinking that he didn't want her any longer. But how was he sure he really knew what he wanted? He was realizing more and more recently that he hardly knew anything about himself. He had thought that being an auror was something he was meant to do for the rest of his life. He had thought that he would learn to outrun the ghosts of the war by now, and he had thought until very recently that he was undoubtedly, decidedly heterosexual...

"Harry, I need you to tell me something. Don't overthink it, just tell me what you're feeling." Ginny paused, taking a deep breath. "Are we... are we anything?"

He had been so taken aback by her question that his jaw had dropped noticeably. She continued, disregarding his reaction.

"There was definitely something back in school, you and I both felt it, but I just... I can't live my life not knowing anymore. It's driving me mad."

He paused, standing in the garden and staring at his shoes so he wouldn't have to see the look on her face when he hesitated, not answering right away as she had asked him to.

"I... I don't know, Gin. Maybe."

Sure enough, as soon as he had lifted his eyes, they met Ginny's and he saw all of the confusion, the anger, and the disappointment that he had been expecting to see. He felt a heavy weight in his stomach, knowing from this point on that there was nothing he could do to fix this. The damage had been done, and he immediately looked away, feeling an overwhelming surge of guilt. He should have told her everything - how he felt about her, how he was struggling with training at work and how he had kissed Draco at the end of June - she surely would have been able to offer him advice or at least understand why he was acting the way that he was.

"Well if you're not sure," she had said, lowering her gaze and clenching her teeth in frustration, "that's probably your answer, then."

He had tried writing to her after this, tried explaining as many of his thoughts as he could, but no matter how many times he attempted to put his feelings onto paper it had never seemed good enough to actually send to Ginny. He had given up trying, and instead taken up drinking with Ron after their auror training nearly every evening.

It was with tremendous shame, then, that he continued to walk behind Ginny, pushing the cart with her school trunk and catching a whiff of her hair with the soft breeze that passed them. He hadn't told Ron and Hermione about what had happened, (mostly because he wasn't entirely sure what had transpired himself), but he knew they could probably tell something was a little off with both Him and Ginny.

The Hogwarts Express was idling on the platform at King's Cross Station, steam billowing out of the engine and wafting its way through the crowds of wizarding families congregating to send their loved ones off. Molly and Arthur, having come straight from Gringotts to meet their daughter on the platform, were there to smother Ginny and Hermione in farewell hugs and wishes of good luck. After what felt like an eternity of Molly checking to make sure they had everything they needed, handing them food to take on the train and wrapping them in hugs again and again, Hermione saw the chance to slip away from her fussing for a moment. She grabbed Harry by the arm, bringing him off to the side of the platform so they could have a word. He was instantly glad to have an excuse to be away from Ginny; he could barely look at her without feeling the weight in his stomach again, wishing to fly as far away as he could on his broomstick so he would never have to face her again.

"Harry, I don't know what's going on with you two," she said, motioning to Ginny, who was now showing off her new broom servicing kit to a couple members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team."I just want you to know that she asked me if you were seeing someone," Hermione said candidly, waving uncomfortably at some first year students who were pointing her and Harry out to their parents.

"Why would she ask you that?"

"She's just curious, I suppose," Hermione shrugged. "And she obviously still cares about you. And she asked me to talk to you. And I'm about to spend a whole year sleeping in the same room as her, so please just make this as easy as possible for me."

Harry laughed, Hermione's anxiety about her proximity to Ginny for the next 8 months somehow making him feel better about all of this.

"I feel like you would have known if I were. Seeing someone, that is." He granted her a smile, which she returned half-heartedly.

"Harry, just...be gentle. Please. She doesn't show she's hurting like the rest of us. She just sort of...brushes it off." They both glanced over at the redheaded witch again, who was now excitedly pantomiming a story to her friends that, from the looks of it, contained a very elaborate and disastrous broomstick collision.

"Yeah, I know." Harry replied. In truth, that was what he loved about her; her ability to remain so strong even when everything around them seemed to be crumbling. He had never even seen her grieve Fred's death like the rest of them had. She had shut herself in her room for the first couple of weeks after the war, but otherwise she appeared to be nothing but her confident, playful self. Harry both admired and envied her for it.

"Write to me, ok? Just let me know what's going on. Ron is rubbish at filling me in." The train whistle sounded, and the students were beginning to say their last goodbyes.

"Yeah, of course," he said, taking a deep breath. Part of him wished that he could be getting on the train with them, just to escape to the place which had always brought him solace as a child; made him feel as though he had a home. He had to remind himself that it wasn't that place anymore, and he was no longer the child who could think of Hogwarts as a refuge from his life with the Dursleys. He knew he wouldn't be able to think of the school without first remembering the war for a very, very long time.

Hermione, who must have sensed something a little off in his expression, pulled him into a quick hug.

"We're all going to be ok," she said, surely reassuring herself as much as she was Harry.

"You're just as bad as Ron's mum," Harry replied, grinning as she pulled away from him.

"Oh, shut up," she laughed, pushing him playfully in the chest. She led Harry back to the train where Ginny and Ron were standing with their parents. Harry stood in the circle of people, shifting his weight uncomfortably on his feet as Hermione took Ron off to the side and embraced him as well, sharing some words with him and then a short farewell kiss. Harry could feel his ears turning red with embarrassment; Ginny stood just a couple of feet from him and he had no parting words or affections to share with her. The fact that her parents were right beside him, looking very confused by his reluctance to speak with her, was only exacerbating the situation. He was relieved when Hermione and Ginny finally boarded the train, and Ron announced that he and Harry had better get back to the ministry before they missed any more work.

...

Ron didn't seem to have noticed Harry's avoidance of Ginny on the platform, or if he did, he hadn't said anything about it. Harry appreciated that about his friend; Whereas Hermione would drill him with questions until she got to the root of whatever problem he was having, Ron was content with ignoring something if it seemed to be making Harry uncomfortable. The two of them apparated at the ministry entrance, entering through the telephone box on the corner of Trafalger Square and walking through the giant, vaulted atrium to the lifts that would take them to the Auror Department. Ron picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet and a chocolate bar at a kiosk that had been set up in the lobby, and the two of them stood in silence as the large, brass doors of the elevator closed behind them.

"Blimey," Ron exclaimed after a moment of looking over the paper, the chocolate bar remaining unopened in his hand. "Look at this, Harry," he said, offering the paper to his friend. "I guess we missed more than we thought this morning." On the front page was a witch with stringy, brown hair and a narrow, sunken face, holding a sign with her Azkaban Prison number printed across it. The headline below her pale, ghostlike face read Hogsmeade Witch Charged in Laethelixir Death of Two Children. Harry blinked twice, wondering if he could possibly be reading the page correctly. The witch had to have been around the same age as Ron and himself. He opened up the paper to read below the fold, and felt his stomach drop for the second time that day. A small boy who couldn't have been much older than Teddy looked up at him from the page, his brown eyes large and inquisitive, a couple of teeth newly formed and protruding out from his gums like tiny, white candies. A young girl was pictured beside him, her unkempt hair making her look like a miniature version of her mother. Harry skimmed the story accompanying the pictures, learning that the father of these children had been one of the fallen aurors in the battle at Hogwarts, and the mother was trying to claim that her children had also been murdered by death eaters before the ministry had found her stash of the elixir in the apartment. She had been taken to the ministry for questioning, and was granted a life sentence almost immediately.

"Yeah, I suppose we did," Harry said, handing the paper back to his friend. He felt as though he was going to be sick. The elevator lurched down a story to the Auror Department, and Harry grabbed the railing in the gilded lift to stabilize himself.

"Reckon we'll have a hell of a training schedule ahead of us after this," Ron said, folding up the newspaper and putting it in the pocket of his robes. "They're not going to let us sleep until we've got every single one of these dealers behind bars,"

Harry nodded, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead and trying to handle the waves of nausea that were passing over him like a storm.

"You alright?" Ron asked, his face concerned. "You look sort of green."

"No, I'm fine. Just... Didn't eat breakfast."

"Do you want my chocolate? I'm not much feeling like eating now, anyways."

Harry offered his friend as genuine of a smile as he could muster.

"Sure, Ron. Thanks."

...

Ron had been right about the new training schedule; as soon as the two of them arrived in the auror department they were shooed into a large, rounded room where the rest of the aurors in the ministry had already been meeting. Kingsley Shacklebolt was in the center of the room, his long, violet robes making him stand out in the sea of ministry workers. He granted Harry and Ron a slight nod as they took their seats in the very back of the room next to Dean Thomas.

"What did we miss?" Ron whispered loudly to Dean.

"Laethelixir crackdown," Dean responded, pointing towards the chalkboard at the front of the room, upon which an enchanted piece of chalk was frantically scribbling down the key notes from Kingsley's presentation. "They're trying to confiscate what's out there, and then shut down the source."

"Great," Ron muttered, under his breath. "And we don't have any leads, do we?"

A witch with blonde hair seated in front of them turned around and shushed Ron loudly. Dean shrugged in response, and both he, Harry and Ron focused their attention on the front of the room.

"As we have determined from the most recent round of investigations, there is now a small army of individuals distributing this product around the wizarding community. It's no longer contained to a shop as we had once believed. Our job as a department," he said, using his wand to pick up what looked like a large stack of pamphlets, and then distributing them out to the aurors, "Is to prevent this kind of tragedy from ever happening again." Harry and Ron looked at each other as the pamphlets made their way to the back row. On the front of the first page in bright, green font read "September Training Schedule". The page went on to outline all of the additional training exercises that the ministry would be implementing, including the new addition of a patrol rotation, in which the aurors were assigned to wizarding communities throughout the region with the goal of shutting down the spread of this potion.

"This," Kingsley said loudly over the chatter that was now spreading amongst the crowd, "Is what we found in the home of the most recent victims." He was holding up a thin book, which had been hollowed out on the inside to contain a small crevice into which a vial could be placed. "You will have to account for the distribution of this potion through creative means, and I must remind you to always remain on your guard." He took a deep breath, placing the book back down on the desk at the front of the room. "I think we can all say this is more of a threat than we first realized. It is up to us to eliminate it."

Ron poked Harry hard in the side, pointing to the training schedule in his hand. "Harry, it says we train for 6 more hours today. We're stuck here every day until after dark!" He slumped back into his chair, his head turning up towards the ceiling. "I think Hermione was onto something," Ron muttered, shutting his eyes. "At this rate I'd rather be a student."

...

The training rooms were more crowded than Harry had ever seen them, some Aurors pouring over Muggle police reports for traces of leads that might have been missed initially, some of them practicing spellwork and agility training as he usually did on Tuesday afternoons. He followed Ron down the sloping stone hallway leading deeper underground into the simulation rooms, which is where they had been assigned to for the rest of the day.

They shut the large, wooden door behind them when they stepped into the darkened room listed on their training schedule. Harry looked around, noticing a couple other aurors he didn't recognize standing around the room as well. The trainer, who stood in his dark maroon robes at the center of the room, had biceps around the size of Harry's head, and a tight crew cut that emphasized the severity of his square jaw. Harry longed instantly for his own trainer, who understood his shortcomings and worked with him in an encouraging, constructive manner. He couldn't imagine that this man would give him the same attention or patience that Curtis did.

Sure enough, as soon as the last aurors had entered the room and all were accounted for, the trainer began explaining the simulation, which included "fire, water, and curses they had probably never heard before". Ron exchanged a daunting look with his friend, and then began to roll up the sleeves of his robes. Harry remained rooted to the spot, his nerves mingling with the terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had felt since seeing the picture of the boy in the paper. He wanted to turn around and leave the room as soon as possible. He didn't know if he could handle any sort of simulation at the moment, much less one that sounded more difficult than anything he had done before.

"On your marks," the trainer bellowed, as the aurors lined up at the start of the course. Ron was leaning forward, his jaw set and his body ready to spring into motion. Harry felt a fierce wave of admiration for his friend's determination to whatever obstacles were thrown their way in these training rooms. He was truly resilient enough for this job. These exercises were bringing out Ron's best qualities, while it seemed to only be showing Harry his weaknesses.

"Go!" At the trainer's words, the 12 aurors in the room began sprinting into the simulation, which was concealed initially by several feet of dense fog. Harry followed them into the clouded haze, his wand held firmly in front of him. He soon realized the fog was so thick he couldn't see any of the aurors around him, he only heard the sound of spells being fired and curses being blocked within the mist. He continued onward, his feet propelling him forward despite his fears of what lay around the corner. A curse shot past his ear as he ran, and Harry cast a deflecting spell over his shoulder for good measure. He continued to sprint through the room until he stepped in something wet on the cobblestone. He cast a quick lumos spell to light the path in front of him, and found a lake of water running through the middle of the course. He could see the other aurors swimming across to the other side, several of them emerging onto the opposite bank and continuing on. He performed a shield charm on himself, not knowing what the waters contained, and took a deep breath.

The water was frigid, certainly almost as cold as the frozen pond he had dived into when he was trying to retrieve the sword of Gryffindor. His illuminated wand outstretched, he held his head above the lake and began to swim through the waters. As soon as he had started swimming, he knew something was wrong. There was a coldness beginning to envelop him that had nothing to do with the freezing waters. He looked above the lake and noticed several dementors beginning to swarm overhead, their chilling cloaks and concealed faces making him feel an familiar, impending sense of dread. He knew he wouldn't be able to safely cast a patronus until he was on the other side of the lake. He made a decision to tuck his wand away and began to swim with all of his might, determined to reach the other side before the dementors got too close to the waters. He accelerated as fast as he could, using wide, overhead strokes to push himself forward, but he soon realized he wasn't going to be fast enough. The hooded figures were closing in on the room, and he could feel the terror of what was going to happen next before it even started.

He was in the castle and it was nearly midnight. The rubble from the destruction of the corridors mingled with the fallen bodies in the hallways, and everywhere he looked he saw dueling, spells being hurled every which way. He saw Fred's grinning, lifeless face, like he had seen so many times in his dreams. He saw the face of his professor, his father's old friend, a new father himself - the man who had cared about him enough to put his life on the line for Harry more times than he could count. He tried his best to suppress the memories, struggling to recall the good, happy thoughts he had practiced thinking of when learning to produce his first patronus. He thought of the Weasleys, of sitting around a roaring fire during the Christmas holidays and exchanging stories and gifts, and then realized he couldn't use this memory anymore - it was forever marred by Fred's death, and now his own guilt for what he done to Ginny. He thought of broomsticks, of flying on the quidditch pitch back when he was in school, and remembered only the destruction and death that came with the war, all of which was his fault. The last thought that entered his mind was Malfoy's grey, longing eyes, and how they had looked right after Harry had kissed him. He thought of the taste of Malfoy's mouth, the moans Harry had elicited out of him, the memories that Harry usually recalled when he was feeling incurably, insatiably aroused. The memory was like a lifeboat in the middle of freezing waters for Harry to cling to. He continued to press on, his breathing becoming shallow, choppier as he moved forward, using every bit of his strength to break through the water until, finally, his hand reached the cobblestone on the other side.

Harry pulled himself up onto the shore and quickly got to his feet, reaching for his wand so he could conjure a patronus and move past the dementors, who were now lingering just above the bank of the waters. He tried to recall the memory again, of his hands exploring Malfoy's body in his kitchen, but when he held his wand and tried to utter the spell, the memory faltered. Draco was leaving, the sound of his apparating filling the room, removing himself from the situation before they were given the opportunity to talk about what had just happened. Harry was alone, sitting in the study and wishing he had the courage to write to Malfoy. He was alone, sitting in the study and wishing he had said something different to Ginny, that he could do anything to repair their friendship.

One of the dementors appeared to have sensed Harry's thoughts, and began to close in, drawing it's hooded head nearer to Harry's. Harry was yelling the spell now, trying as hard as he could to produce his stag, but only a flicker of blue light was issuing forth from the tip of his wand. He saw the young, innocent face of the boy in the paper again and then saw his godson, an orphan of the war, who would grow up wishing more than anything that he knew his parents, just as Harry had done. A silver terrier was conjured in the darkness, a patronus that quickly sprinted towards the two dementors looming over Harry's head, but it was already too late. Harry heard Ron yelling his name as he fell, tumbling backwards into the waters behind him, everything fading to black.

...

"Potter."

Harry blinked, jolting upright and realizing he was in the same, brightly-lit room he had found himself in several weeks ago, only instead of his trainer, Kingsley Shacklebolt was sitting in the desk chair facing Harry.

"What did I - what happened?" Harry asked, grabbing his glasses from the bedside table and quickly placing them back on his face. "Why am I here?"

Kingsley took a breath, folding his hands in his lap and giving Harry his full attention.

"Potter, I've been speaking with your trainer about these incidents, and I think you'll understand we're both a bit concerned about your... Performance in some of the more challenging training sessions you've encountered."

Harry swallowed quickly, shaking his head at Kingsley's words.

"I'm so sorry, Kinglsey, I didn't mean to-" Kingsley held up a hand to silence Harry before he could say anything else.

"There's no need to apologize, Potter. It's nothing you're doing wrong. If anything, this entire situation is an oversight on our part that could have been avoided, were the appropriate healing methods administered at the correct time."

Harry stared at Kingsley, getting the terrible, sinking feeling that this conversation was leading into something he had feared since he first started working in the Auror Department. Kingsley continued to speak, disregarding the panicked look that had crossed Harry's face.

"War affects each of us in different ways, and we all heal from it in our own time. I know for you, it was more than just the battle at Hogwarts. It was those who lost their lives during the last four years, and the guilt you're bearing from their sacrifice. I think I was a bit too optimistic about how fast someone of your age could recover from tragedies of the magnitude that you have experienced."

"Kingsley, I'm 18 years old, and I can do this. I want to do this."

"I was 22 years old after the first war. I'll be the first to tell you I was too young for the things I had seen. It was a long, painstaking process of recovery. The ghosts of the war followed me home and lingered far after my peers were moving on with their lives. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Harry."

Harry ran a hand through his messy, black hair, Kingsley's words stinging him like needles.

"So what are you saying, exactly? Am I fired?"

"No, not at all." The older man imparted an encouraging smile, recognizing Harry's anxiety about losing his position. "You have an excellent aptitude for this work, and I dare say you'll make one of the best aurors of your generation." Kingsley stood up, looking like he was about to head back to the training rooms once more. "I am, however, encouraging you to take some time." He handed Harry a stack of papers that he withdrew from the desk in the room. "We have a ministry sanctioned healer at St. Mungo's who specializes in post traumatic stress disorders, and I've made arrangements for you to take the next couple of weeks off training so that you can get the help you need."

"But what about the Laethelixir, what about all the training I'll miss while I'm gone?" Harry's head was spinning; he couldn't imagine being away from Ron, from his job for that amount of time. Even the thought of him sitting in his house by himself for longer than a week was making him start to feel nauseous.

"When you're ready, and I do mean really, truly ready, let me know. We'll have your spot saved here until then."

Harry stared at his hands, feeling an overwhelming sense of disappointment with himself at his inability to conquer his own demons. He felt embarrassed, and angry with himself, and clueless about how he was to spend the upcoming weeks without his job to focus on. As though Kingsley could read his thoughts, he put a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder.

"There's no shame in asking for help, Potter."

...

Harry couldn't bring himself to return home. It was only a bit after 2:00, and as he exited the ministry and began to walk down the muggle streets towards Trafalger Square, he couldn't stop thinking about the boy in the paper, and how much his face had reminded Harry of Teddy. They had the same large, hopeful eyes and plump, rosy cheeks, and it broke Harry's heart to think about the lethal consequences that the war had dealt to both of them. It had been several weeks since Harry had paid a visit to Andromeda and his godson, and the more he walked, the more he knew that was where he needed to go. He couldn't really go anywhere else - He needed some space from the probing questions Mrs. Weasley would ask him about Ginny, and everyone else he knew was either headed back to school or in the middle of work at the moment. Everyone except Draco, the voice in the back of his head whispered, but he quickly suppressed it. He hadn't written to Draco yet, and he wasn't even sure he was still in Diagon Alley. Besides, the thought of drinking alone at the Leaky Cauldron at 2:00 in the afternoon did not sound particularly thrilling to him, especially after what he had been through today.

Making the decision for himself, he stepped into an alley between two, brick buildings and disapparated on the spot, picturing the small farmhouse that Andromeda had once shared with Ted Tonks, which she now inhabited with her grandson.

The wind was much stronger in the countryside than it had been in London, and as Harry approached the front garden of the house he shivered inside his robes, which were still slightly damp from the water in the training exercise. He knocked on the front door, hearing the distant sound of a child wailing from inside the house. Andromeda came to the door after a few moments with his five month old godson on her hip, and smiled as soon as she saw Harry. The more he had gotten to know her over the past several months, the sillier he felt for ever comparing her to her older sister when he had first seen her. Her soft brown eyes were filled with kindness, and although she was still grieving the loss of her husband and only daughter, she always made time for Harry whenever he was able to visit. She pulled him into a hug as soon as she saw him. Teddy had stopped crying, and was reaching curiously for Harry's glasses as soon as he had noticed his godfather.

Andromeda invited Harry in for tea, which, he had to admit, was exactly what he was needing at the moment. They sat around the round table in the kitchen, Harry holding Teddy in his lap to give the boy's grandmother a bit of a rest. Teddy kept trying to pull off Harry's glasses, until Harry finally took them off and gave them to the child to keep him occupied for a moment. Andromeda laughed as Teddy promptly began slobbering on the earpiece of the glasses, and Harry smiled, letting his godson continue to explore the strange contraption he wore on his face.

"How have you been doing lately?" Harry asked once they had a couple cups of tea and biscuits between them on the table. "Have you been able to leave the house much?"

Andromeda shook her head, smiling slightly.

"Not much. Every now and then Molly will come over to watch him so I can shower or sleep as long as I need to, but it's mostly just been the two of us." She pinched Teddy's bare toe lightly, and Teddy grinned toothlessly at her.

"I'm sorry I haven't been round as much as I should have been," Harry said, taking a sip of his mint tea with his free hand. "It's been... A hard couple of months."

"I can imagine," Andromeda said, giving Harry a pained, sympathetic look. "How has training been for you?"

"I got suspended today," Harry said, grinning in spite of himself. "For medical reasons. They're having me see a healer at St. Mungo's before I can continue."

"It's not as ridiculous as it sounds," Andromeda responded, sensing his incredulity at the decision. "Often times the first thing that starts to go when you're struggling with trauma is your magical ability."

"I can still do basic spells and stuff like that, I'm not entirely useless..."

"What about your patronus? Have you been able to conjure it as easily as you used to?"

Harry blinked, remembering the instance earlier that day with the dementors in the water. He had blamed that particular problem on the dementors, but when he thought about it, he couldn't remember struggling with his patronus since his third year at Hogwarts. In fact, he couldn't remember producing one at all since the war had ended.

"How did you know -"

"Dora went through the same thing," She said, and Harry suddenly remembered Tonks after his fifth year at Hogwarts, when Bellatrix had killed Sirius in the Department of Mysteries. She was solemn, her appearance remaining static for a change, always looking like she was on the verge of tears. Harry hadn't really given much thought to what she must have been experiencing until now. "She couldn't conjure a patronus for the longest time, and when she did it had changed entirely," Andromeda said. Harry could tell she enjoyed talking about her daughter, even though the memories brought the fresh pain of her absence with them.

"I think I may be having a bit of the same problem," he said candidly. Teddy was now beating his glasses against the table again and again, making Andromeda laugh.

"I struggled with the same thing myself, actually," she said, taking the glasses from her grandson and performing a cleansing charm on them before handing them back to Harry. "Tonks was born in the middle of the first wizarding war, and for what felt like months, I couldn't bring myself to do anything but sleep and eat and try my best to keep her alive. I couldn't have done magic if I had tried."

"What did you do?" Harry asked, finally adjusting the glasses back on his face.

"I had help. From Ted, and Molly and Arthur, and Frank and Alice and the other families we were close with. It was a matter of finding my own way to push through the darkness, so I could be strong for Dora."

Harry felt more guilt than he thought he had felt in ages, but reminded himself that Andromeda didn't blame him, that nobody in the wizarding world held him responsible for the deaths that had taken place during the war. Teddy squeezed his finger with his small, chubby hands, and Harry couldn't help but smile at the boy.

"He looks so much like her, doesn't he?" Harry asked. Andromeda nodded, beaming at her grandson. She suppressed a large yawn behind her teacup, which didn't go unnoticed by Harry.

"If you need to rest, I can watch him for a bit," Harry offered. In truth, he got along very well with Teddy, and didn't mind spending time with him at all. He had so much of his parents in him already, and it helped Harry miss them a little less whenever he could spend time with the boy.

"It wouldn't be a bother?" Andromeda asked. Harry shook his head, picking up the child under his arms and swinging him overhead, making Teddy giggle.

"I would be so grateful," she said, taking her saucer over to the sink. "If you wouldn't mind changing him too, everything is back in his playroom. She came over and kissed the top of Teddy's head, which had a couple strands of brownish blonde hair already. Harry had never seen it himself, but had heard that Teddy's hair changed colors from time to time, just as his mother's had.

"Thank you, Harry," she sighed, sounding exhausted now that the possibility of sleep was on the horizon for her.

"Don't mention it," Harry grinned, bringing Teddy into his playroom, which had flying quidditch players soaring across the wallpaper. He set Teddy down in front of his toys, amusing the child with his stuffed animals and playthings until Teddy began to rub his eyes himself, and Harry put him down in his crib for a nap. He spent a couple minutes perusing the bookshelf in the playroom, which he was realizing now must have been Tonks's old room. There were old schoolbooks stacked up on the shelves, and Harry grinned as he picked up a copy of "A History of Magic", which he didn't think he had ever opened at school, despite Hermione's nagging. Tonks's name was scribbled inside the front cover, and it made Harry feel closer to her. He sat in the large armchair in the room, flipping through the pages and listening to the soft, steady rhythm of Teddy's breathing as the boy fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: This one is a rough one, guys. Major trigger warnings for graphic sexual content, lots of foul language, and a suicide attempt. I swear it gets much lighter after this chapter, but if any of the above items are not things you are wanting to have in your life, feel free to skip right over this chapter. No hard feelings, and the ones to follow will probably be more fun for you anyways! Thanks for reading, as always!

**Chapter Six**

_"You were alone left out in the cold_

_Clinging to the ruin of your broken home_

_Too lost and hurting to carry your load_

_We all need someone to hold_

_You've been fighting the memory all on your own_

_Nothing washes, nothing grows_

_I know how it feels being by yourself in the rain_

_We all need someone to stay."_

_\- Someone to Stay, Vancouver Sleep ClinicChapter Six_

September, 1998

The Hog's Head was more crowded than Draco had expected it to be on a Monday afternoon, and as he walked into the dingy pub he had to scan the room a couple times before he saw the tall, burly man in the corner with whom he had planned to meet. He had only seen Regis Delev before when the man had been pointed out to him by another one of the distributors in Hogsmeade, and even then Draco had felt shivers down his spine when he noticed the man's stature; his commanding physical presence was almost as intimidating as the power he held within the black market community. He towered nearly a foot over even Draco's head, had long, dark hair falling to his shoulders and three, white scars over his left eye, leaving him with half of an eyebrow. In addition to this, his brawny, massive arms were covered with faded tattoos, most of them symbols and languages Draco didn't understand. Draco had sent him a letter requesting a meeting in the middle of August, and he had returned the correspondence weeks later, suggesting Draco stop by the pub after his rounds that day.

Draco met Delev in the back corner booth, taking a seat and ordering a pint when the bartender came by. His hands were trembling in his lap under the table, and he hoped Delev hadn't noticed the pallor of his already stark white skin.

"You're Lucius's son, aren't you?" Delev bellowed, his voice just as gruff as Draco had imagined it would be.

"You knew my father?"

"Never ran in the same circles. He was much too focused on that death eater nonsense for my taste."

Draco swallowed, lowering his head and staring again at his hands. He had began to squeeze his knees until his knuckles turned white.

"You're doing well," Delev said, taking a large swig of his drink. "You're getting more product out than most of my distributors who have been working three times as long as you."

"I need an advance," Draco said abruptly, still not making eye contact with Delev, even after the words had tumbled out of his mouth. He took a deep breath, and continued.

"My mother's dying, I can't afford to stay in an inn with her bills, and my family's estate is being held by the ministry."

Delev set his glass down on the wooden table a bit harder than Draco had been expecting him to, and Draco flinched noticeably.

"We've all got sad stories, now, don't we, boy?" He said slowly. Draco finally looked up, and to his surprise, there was a smile on Delev's face. He immediately felt sick to his stomach, wishing he had never arranged this meeting in the first place.

"It's just until the ministry turns everything back over. Once I have everything back I'll pay you twice the amount I borrowed."

Delev leaned forward a bit at the table, bringing his large forearms to rest on the wooden surface.

"You're a faggot, aren't you?" He asked in a conversational tone, the same unnerving smile making his features a thousand times more menacing. Draco immediately flushed, turning his head around to see if anyone had been eavesdropping on their conversation. He couldn't tell why this man was bringing up anything about his sexual orientation, especially when he had just been asking to borrow money.

"Of course I'm not -" He stuttered, but Delev continued, dismissing his attempt to save face.

"Don't bother denying it, I've seen you in the papers. Besides..." he said, beginning to swirl his index finger around the outer rim of his glass. "I like the pretty ones."

Draco looked down into his lap again, sure that his face must be on fire. He had the same feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had last year whenever Voldemort ordered him to torture the prisoners being held in the dungeons of the manor. It was like a creeping, black cloud that was slowly spreading to all of his organs.

"If you're serious about the money," Delev continued, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a scrap of parchment and scribbling a hasty address upon it. "Meet me at my hotel at 11. I'd love to continue our conversation."

With that, he left the paper in front of Draco's drink, and turned to go.

Draco looked around once more, trying to ensure that nobody had caught any of the conversation that had just taken place. There didn't appear to be any overly attentive individuals staring towards his table, but he knew better than to let his guard down. He closed his eyes briefly, trying not to think about what Delev had said, and wondering if there was any other possible way around this.

He could run, he supposed. He could take Bennett back and the two of them could go to America, like Bennett had always been talking about, but he couldn't just leave his mother to die alone in St. Mungo's. He thought about staying here and hiding, quitting his job and laying low for a bit, but the problem still remained that he needed money to keep his mother alive and to afford a place for himself to stay. He had even thought about trying to break into the mansion and steal some of his father's old trinkets to sell on the black market, but he knew the whole manor would be protected with ministry charms, and he didn't stand a chance pulling off that kind of a stunt all by himself.

He needed money, and there were only a couple of ways he could get it. Rather than begging that his aunt help front the cost of her estranged sister's medical bills, Draco could swallow his discomfort and do whatever he needed to do to procure his advance. It would only be a couple of hours, at the most. Two hours sacrificed to extend his mother's life and keep himself alive was a trade he was willing to make.

He left a few galleons on the table for the drinks, and headed out the door.

...

Draco found himself walking the cobbled streets around the Hog's Head aimlessly for a while, lost in thought. Hogwarts was looming in the distance over the thatched roofs of the stores and houses in the main square, which was one of the reasons he always liked making rounds in Hogsmeade. It reminded him of happier days, times when he was young and carefree and could devote his full attention to making Harry Potter miserable. He had found, even then, that the adrenaline rush he felt whenever Harry scowled at him or quipped back with a witty retort was well worth the effort it took to find a million new ways to push his buttons. It was a game he played, always looking for a new way to be challenged, and Draco looked back on it fondly.

The thought of spending his days laughing with Crabbe and Goyle and cracking jokes about the professors in the back of classrooms filled him with another wave of sadness. He didn't feel like he was even the same person who had strutted around the corridors, picking on first years and vexing Potter at every given opportunity. The war had taken all of that from him, and left him here alone, an empty shell with only his memories left to cling to. It didn't matter what Delev wanted to do to him tonight; he hadn't felt like he was really living in months.

He thought of Potter again, as he did more and more nearly every day, and wished that he had stayed when Potter had kissed him. He wished his fear hadn't gotten the best of him, and he wished he didn't have to walk through this part of his life alone. He could have had so much better than this.

...

Draco knocked on the door of the room number scribbled on the parchment he was holding, his heart racing in his chest. He had done his best to prepare himself for whatever might happen. He had gone on a long walk to clear his head, taken a couple shots of firewhiskey in the Three Broomsticks and combed his hair so it looked as presentable as ever. When the door opened, however, he felt the same, sinking sensation that he had when he had first laid eyes on Delev in the beginning of July. He stepped into the room slowly, realizing instantly that this must be one of the most luxurious suites in all of London. The ceilings were vaulted and adorned with gilded, golden figures; the floors polished until they were nearly reflective, and the furniture was accented with the same hints of gold that echoed all throughout the room. There was a massive, four poster bed with blue velvet drapings that stood towards the back wall. It was a palace fit for a king, and Draco felt himself growing more uneasy in this place by the second.

"Have a drink," Delev commanded, pouring Draco a glass of whiskey at the bar towards the front of the room. Draco obliged, tossing the whiskey down his throat without hesitation. The thought occurred to him after he had swallowed the drink that it definitely could have been drugged, but this notion was more comforting than anything at this point. He wanted to remember as little about this night as possible, and wasn't opposed to having this recollection taken from him entirely.

"Leave your wand on the counter," Delev ordered again, taking a swig of whiskey himself and walking over to the back of the room. Draco obeyed, wishing he had drank a little more at the Three Broomsticks before this. Draco set down his empty whiskey class and followed Delev over to the bed.

"How much money are we talking?" Delev asked, finishing up the rest of his glass as well.

"150 Galleons," Draco replied quickly, still averting his eyes from Delev's. He had done the math, and that much money would buy him about a month of time. Surely the ministry would finish up their investigation by the time October rolled around.

"That's a lot of money, boy," Delev grunted. Draco's heart skipped a beat in it's chest.

"I'm good for it. I've been building my client base, I'll have it earned back in just a couple weeks, and I can pay you back when -"

"Enough," Delev said loudly, interrupting Draco's words. Draco lifted his eyes to meet Delev's black ones, and felt his stomach drop once more. "You're earning it now," Delev growled, bringing a rough hand up to Draco's head.

He kissed Draco hard, bringing the younger man's body into his own before Draco had a chance to say anything else. His breath was sour and his mouth tasted of barley; Draco found himself wishing again for unconsciousness as he let Delev's tongue explore his own. He followed the man's lead, being as enthusiastic as he could muster, all the while picturing himself in any other situation but this. Delev grabbed his hair by the roots and pushed him roughly down on his knees, slapping his cheek and muttering something about him being a "good little slut" before shoving himself fully into Draco's mouth. Draco squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could, trying to focus on something that brought him any sort of happiness. He thought of Bennett's gentle hands on his body, of his soothing words and his respect for Draco, always asking what it was that Draco wanted to do, never making him feel taken advantage of. He thought of Potter's smile that had been haunting him for the last couple of months, about how good it would feel to kiss him, or to just be in his presence again. Delev's hands pulled his hair so hard that tears welled up in his eyes, and he was beginning to choke on the length of the larger man's member. He kept himself as relaxed as he could, refusing to let the tears fall, and continued on, the thought of Potter giving him enough strength to continue.

...

Draco awoke the next day in the unfamiliar velvet covered bed, realizing instantly that this had not been a nightmare, that what had happened last night was very, very real. It started to come back to him as soon as he was awake and he shuddered to himself, trying to forget what he had been forced to do. Every part of his body was aching and sore, bruising covering most of the skin he could see on his arms and legs. He was alone in the room, which he was grateful for; Delev must have not waited for him before starting his day. He stood up, feeling a fresh wave of pain between his legs, and began to walk over to the bar cart where Delev had kept the whiskey from last night. After a couple, long pulls straight from the bottle, Draco was finally starting to feel numb again.

There was a copy of the Daily Prophet on the bar cart and Draco glanced at it inquisitively; something about the woman on the front cover of the paper seemed familiar to him. He picked the paper up, reading the headline of the article and the pictures that came with it.

He felt a cold chill wash over his body, and dropped the paper instantly. He ran as fast as he could to the lavatory and wretched over the toilet, getting rid of the whiskey he had just drank and then dry heaving for the next several minutes until he could make sure that everything was out of his system.

He stood up, hyperventilating, and tried to get his bearings. He had done this - he had killed those children. He couldn't think straight, he couldn't do anything but stand there and try to gasp for his breath. He had to leave here as soon as possible, before Delev got back. He had to get out of this business, to get rid of his inventory and find a way out of this trap before something else happened - something worse.

He noticed that tears were streaming down his face as he tried to catch his breath, and he couldn't do anything to stop them. He picked up his clothes by the bed and began to dress himself as best as he could. He had to get out of this place, this life...

He grabbed his wand from the counter. There was a hefty sized bag of galleons that Delev had placed on the counter for him as well, but he left it behind. He would have to find another way; there was no possibility of him continuing on in this job. Focusing all of his strength and determination on the location he had in mind, knowing the consequence of him splinching himself again was always a real possibility, Draco disapparated from the room in Hogsmeade, leaving this terrible memory behind him.

...

He hadn't been out to the countryside where his aunt lived since he was a little boy. His mother had taken him here a couple times without his father's knowledge; She and her sister had a complicated relationship, but Draco remembered times when both of them would put aside their differences and be there for each other, just as they had been when they were children. The last time he remembered was when his grandmother, Druella, had passed away. Draco had only met her a couple of times, but when she had died, Narcissa brought Draco over to her sister's house and the two grieved together, sharing memories and stories like nothing between them had changed. Narcissa had told Draco not to share anything about that day with his father, as his aunt and uncle were not supposed to be on speaking terms with their family.

He saw the old cottage surrounded by rolling, green hills, and was transported back to being a 7-year-old boy whose sole focus was comforting his mother in her loss. He never thought he would have come back here, but as he walked towards the house, he felt the comfort of the familiar landscape like a warm embrace. He wiped the tears away from his eyes as best as he could, and patted his hair down to look as presentable as possible.

He knocked, and was greeted at the door by Andromeda, an astonished look on her face.

"Draco, what are you doing here?" She asked, looking past his shoulder as though she expected someone else to be there. Her dark hair was frizzy and unkempt but her eyes were so much like his mother's he had to swallow hard to keep himself from tears again.

"May I come in?" he asked politely. She looked behind her into the house briefly and nodded, motioning him into the kitchen. The place was messier than he had remembered it, and it wasn't until he saw the scattered toys all over the living room that he remembered; Lupin's son, Draco's new nephew, must have had to come stay with his grandmother after the war. The thought was too much for him to dwell on at the moment, with what he had just seen in the paper. He swallowed hard, and reminded himself to stay focused on the task at hand.

"I'm sorry to just show up without warning," he began slowly. Andromeda was standing expectantly and clearly needing him to explain his presence so she could understand why he had come here. "I need help. My mother, she's dying and I don't have the money to keep her alive much longer." His aunt's expression softened, her eyes filling with sorrow. It seemed as though she must have known Narcissa was sick, but didn't know anything about the scope of her illness.

"I need somewhere to stay for a bit. I can work, I can tend the field and do whatever you need help with, I just... I'm stuck and I don't think I can get out without your help." Draco took a deep breath. He didn't think he had ever subjugated himself this much, or depended on someone else's kindness in this way. It was a humbling act, but he didn't have any pride left to hold onto.

His aunt opened her mouth, blinking several times as though she were deep in thought.

"Draco I - I didn't know it was... What happened to her? When did she -"

"Draco?"

The voice was not Andromeda's, and it came from the hallway leading into the kitchen. Draco looked up instantly, not believing what he had heard until he saw Harry standing in the kitchen, wearing the white, collared shirt and well-fitting pants that went underneath his auror training robes. He was taller, more muscular, and more handsome than Draco had ever seen him. His hair was cut better than it had been in their school days, and he now had a light beard which drew all of Draco's attention to his bespectacled, green eyes.

The shock of seeing Potter in this house quickly subsided, and Draco realized in absolute horror that Harry had heard what Draco had just asked his aunt. He was wrong - he did have some pride left to lose. It took everything in his power to keep from apparating on the spot and leaving this place behind without as much as another word.

"What are you doing here?" Draco said quickly, his cheeks flushing when he spoke to Harry.

"Harry's been giving me a hand with Teddy," Andromeda said immediately, quick to defend Harry's presence. "He's been a great help over here."

"How much did you -" Draco began to ask Harry, who was now looking extremely uncomfortable.

"I already knew. About your mum. I'm sorry," Harry said.

Draco looked from Harry to his aunt and back again, and felt the betrayal of what Harry had just said begin to sink beneath his skin. The tears were beginning to well up in his eyes again - he had to get out of here as soon as possible.

He thanked his aunt for her time quickly and opened the front door again, striding into the front garden and getting ready to apparate to the inn.

"Draco, wait!" Harry called after him, running outside to catch him before he left. Draco ignored him and just kept walking forward, trying his best to keep the tears from falling in front of Potter. He didn't turn around until Harry had grabbed his shoulder and called his name again. He looked into Harry's eyes, and realized that the pain that he was feeling right now was greater than anything he had felt when he was with Delev the night before.

"You knew about my parents," Draco said slowly, "about my mum, and the ministry, about everything that was happening, and you kissed me and then avoided me like the plague for three, fucking months?"

Harry looked taken aback; clearly he had not thought about his actions from Draco's point of view.

"Draco I didn't - I didn't know any of that when I kissed you. I'm sorry."

"You probably wouldn't have ever talked to me again if we didn't happen to be in the same cottage on the same afternoon"

Draco pulled himself out of Harry's grasp and began to keep walking, trying to summon up the strength to apparate again.

"Draco I tried writing, I just couldn't sort through what to say to you... And besides, you kissed me back! And you left! You left... and you didn't say anything, and I didn't think you wanted anything to do with me after that."

"I was scared!" Draco said, raising his voice in response to Potter's accusation. "I didn't know what to do, and I'd been seeing someone at the time, and I didn't want to hurt anyone more than necessary,"

"Oh, that's rich," Harry said, rolling his eyes dramatically. "How do you think _I _felt when you just up and vanished without another word? Without even an explanation? I'd never kissed a bloke before, and you just left me standing in the kitchen wondering what I had done wrong — I hardly spoke to anyone for weeks after that."

"This is a little more complicated than your fragile sexuality, Potter."

Harry ignored his comment and proceeded, following Draco through the garden so he couldn't just apparate and escape.

"I'm sorry, okay? I shouldn't have waited. I should have written to you. It just... It was a lot for me to process."

"Well you processed it rather quickly, didn't you?"

Harry arched an eyebrow, taking a step away from Draco.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The Weasley girl. You were back with her in less than a month. I saw you two in Diagon Alley."

"Oh, so you were following me?" Harry said, his expression growing more incredulous by the minute. "You're sounding more and more like a jealous schoolgirl..."

"I wasn't following you. I live there, Potter," Draco spat, the tears now completely gone from his eyes as anger began to course through his veins. "Because your ministry took my house, and my family, and my inheritance, and everything I had just to punish me for what my father did."

"You mean for being a death eater?" Harry responded, raising his voice to match Draco's as he began to lose his patience. "For wanting all of the Muggleborns dead? For trying to deliver me straight to Voldemort on a silver platter?"

"Fuck you. I've been through enough for him, I don't need your lecture right now."

"Tell me I'm wrong! Tell me you wouldn't have turned me over to your precious dark lord when given the first opportunity."

Draco took a step towards Harry this time, challenging him to say something else.

"I was given thousands of opportunities." Draco said, his tone now cool and his voice steady. "Don't you dare tell me what I would have done with your life. I didn't want him to win any more than you did."

"Could have fooled me with that dark mark on your arm."

He flinched internally at the reference to his tattoo; he didn't think Harry had ever seen it before, and he wondered how he knew it was there. He took great care to keep that particular artifact of the war a secret. The only time he even exposed it to himself was late at night after a couple glasses of bourbon, when he pressed a cursed dagger he had gotten from his aunt's old things into the dark, inky skin there, drawing crimson beads of blood to the surface. It had become a routine of his, a release of the pressures that had built up within him throughout the day, and he looked forward to the dark hours where he could sit in isolation, relishing in the pain he was producing. Over the past couple months, the scars had defaced the skull on his arm so that it hardly looked like the same marking, but there was no way he had found yet to fully erase it from his body. It lingered now like a ghost from his past that he was ashamed to show in the daylight. It was cruel of Potter to address it, to make a mockery of his sins.

Draco clenched his wand in his fist, bringing it between Harry and himself. Harry stared at it in amusement, as if daring Draco to try something. Draco would have given anything to have been in this situation a month ago. He and Harry were less than a foot away from each other, both of them breathing heavily and staring intensely into each other's eyes, but it wasn't at all what he wanted now. All he could feel at this moment was rage - some of it targeted towards Harry, but most of it towards himself. He couldn't undo the mistakes he had made, and if history had taught him anything, it was that the only way to make his problems disappear was to hide from them. Every time he tried to do anything differently, a new skeleton in his closet would emerge and rear its ugly head, forcing him into a battle he was too tired to fight. He deserved to suffer; he deserved to be alone right now.

"You don't know the half of what I've been through, Potter. It wasn't simple at all, I didn't have a choice."

Harry looked again at the wand in Draco's hand, probably wondering if he was planning on actually using it.

"People can make choices, Draco. You just let your parents' decisions unfold your life for you."

Draco nearly laughed at Harry's comment in light of the current situation. Harry had no idea the scope of Draco's decisions, especially the ones that had led him to the grave he was digging for himself now.

"That's easy for you to say, Potter. Your parents are war heroes who were dead before you could even speak. You don't know what it's like."

Harry placed his hand over Draco's clenched fist, lowering Draco's wand from its position on his chest. Draco didn't feel much like resisting the movement, and, in spite of everything that was happening, he relished in the feeling of Harry's skin touching his own. It was warmer than he had expected, and jolted him back again to that morning in June, when they had abandoned their pride and surrendered to the raw passion that had always been resting right beneath the surface of every argument they had shared, waiting for someone to bid it forth. Draco looked back into Harry's eyes, wondering if the scene was going to organically recreate itself, if Harry was thinking the same thing that he was. The cool wind whipped at their faces and whistled through the trees that surrounded the cottage, and for a moment he felt himself getting lost in Harry's bright green eyes.

"Draco," Harry said finally, after what felt like several lifetimes had passed. "I know you're punishing me for what happened to your parents, and what...happened between us, but you were never alone then, and you're not alone now, either. I would have helped you if you had just -"

"Don't you dare. Don't say what you would have done differently, you spent every waking moment that year trying to expose me."

Harry pressed his hand more firmly over Draco's, both of them still clutching Draco's wand.

"If you had just told Dumbledore what was going on, we could have protected you."

Draco narrowed his eyes spitefully, glancing again down at their hands.

"You couldn't have protected me from Voldemort. He would have killed me and my whole family before you even realized what had happened."

"It was never too late, Draco."

Dracto took that moment to whip his hand away from Harry's, not knowing how much longer he could bear thinking about that year, or the things he should have done differently before the war. At this point, there were too many regrets for him to even list in his head.

"Well, it is now."

Draco broke away from Harry, giving him a last, fleeting glance and turned towards the garden once more, beginning to walk away until he could get away from Harry's reach.

"Draco, wait - don't leave -"

But before he had heard the rest of what Harry had to say, Draco had clenched the wand again in his hand and used it to transport himself away from the cottage.

...

He stumbled a little upon apparating into Diagon Alley, and the realization that he hadn't eaten anything in the last couple of days hit him like a ton of bricks. He had grown so used to the gnawing pain in his stomach that he wasn't sure if it had anything to do with hunger anymore.

A pair of witches shopping together stopped in the street to give him a strange look as he grabbed onto the wall of the Leaky Cauldron for stability. He must have been quite a sight, all skin and bones and sunken eyes, stumbling his way through the street in broad daylight.. he averted his gaze from them and continued on, swallowing another wave of nausea that welled up in the back of his throat.

He shouldn't have said those things at the house. He shouldn't have left again before letting Potter say his final piece, but he couldn't let the other boy talk any more about how things might have been better now if Draco had acted differently - It was almost too painful for him to bear imagining the possibilities of what might have been. He couldn't dwell any longer in that state of regret, all the while mourning the place where he had ended up. The only person he didn't have to push out of his life anymore was his mother, because she was dying in the hospital already, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. As he staggered up the stairs past the usual, Tuesday afternoon crowd and into his room, the feeling dawned on him that he had finally reached the end of his rope. He had done everything possible to fuck up the only good things in life that he had. He was a coward, a prostitute, and now a murderer - he had managed to turn everyone in his life against him. There couldn't possibly be any coming back from this.

He reached into his desk drawer for his whiskey, feeling already more numb than he usually did after a couple of tumblers in. It was strangely comforting, knowing that he didn't have any more pain after this. He didn't know what was on the other side, but he knew it had to be better than this wretched excuse for a life.

He pulled out three scraps of parchment from his old school trunk, which sat in the corner of the room. He at least owed an explanation to those who would hear about his death.

Potter's voice was ringing in his ears as he wrote the words, scrawling and drinking whiskey and then pouring the first shot of Laethelixir into his glass. The euphoria was unbelievable - instantly he was hurled into waves of pleasure more intense than the best physical high he had ever experienced. He began to write faster, letting the words spill out onto his parchment, his brain feeling powerful and wonderful and so, so happy... He smiled with the second vial he poured into his cup, and then the third. He thought of Potter's face, of how his green eyes had lit up when they had first seen Malfoy in the kitchen. Despite everything that he had said, he remembered the surge of joy, the butterflies he felt in the pit of his stomach upon seeing Harry's face. Recalling the sensation brought a strange sense of comfort, a feeling of nostalgia for a home that was not his to return to.

...

It was ironic, he thought to himself as he felt his brain slipping from consciousness after the seventh glass, that this was as alive as he could remember feeling in his whole life.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Hey, all! Long time, no update! Sorry about that, life has just been chaotic and I'm moving currently, but will hopefully be cranking these out more regularly soon. If you're enjoying this story so far, or if you have any constructive criticism or wishes for future chapters, I would love to hear what you've got! That being said, please enjoy this chapter. As much as you can. Because it's also sad. (I said I was going to stop writing sad chapters, but I lied. And I swear this one is better than the last one. And it gets better.)

**Chapter Seven**

_"Found you in the bedroom_

_Vacant, set in gloom_

_Jamming all your fingertips into all your wounds_

_Baby, it's a dog day_

_Don't you let it rule_

_Cause I could hold your whole weight_

_If you asked me to."_

_\- Stars and Moons, Dizzy_

September, 1998

The sound of Draco disapparating rang in Harry's ears like a gunshot, echoing and reverberating in his head several moments after Draco had gone. The look Draco had given him right before he had disappeared was imprinted upon Harry's brain in a way he would not soon forget; the utter rejection and defeat evident in his expression made Harry want to abandon all else and follow him to wherever he decided he needed to go.

He felt immediate remorse for the words he had spoken, for quarrelling like a child with Draco in light of everything that was happening the other man's life at the moment. It was as though he had been transported back to his days at Hogwarts, when he would spar with Malfoy in the halls at every given opportunity, when Harry would go to any measures necessary to protect his pride. The guilt he was now feeling reminded him that he had acted no differently than that today. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to soothe his frustration, fighting back his urge to punch the nearest brick wall he could find. He took a moment to let himself calm down, distancing his mind from the argument that had just taken place.

After a couple of silent moments had passed, he began to walk back towards the cottage, hoping that Andromeda wouldn't be too concerned about the way they had both rushed out of the house without so much as an explanation. As he turned around, he realized to his utter humiliation that he had left the front door open, that the fight in the front garden was no longer a private affair. He stepped back into the house, shutting the door gently behind him and raising his eyebrows in acknowledgement of Andromeda.

"Sorry about that," He said, running a hand through his hair and puffing his cheeks out in embarrassment.

She remained seated at the table, the cup of tea she had poured when Harry had first arrived still resting on its saucer in front of her.

"Teddy seemed to sleep right through it, nothing to apologize for," she said, smiling reassuringly.

Harry sat down across from her at the table, letting out a deep sigh.

"He's hurting," she said, turning her teacup idly to have something to do with her hands. "With his mother and everything else going on - he's just lashing out."

Harry nodded again, not knowing how to respond, but sure that she had to be right about that.

"I know, but I still shouldn't have -" he began, but the words got lost in his throat before he could form them. He wished he could just take back the last ten minutes of his life and have been a bit kinder, a bit more understanding.

Silence fell between them for a moment, and Harry was grateful for it. Just having someone else in the room who could listen and not offer advice or judgment of any kind was a refreshing change from what he was used to.

He lifted his head, and saw that Andromeda was looking at him kindly from across the table.

"He has feelings for you," Andromeda said, sipping her tea slowly. "The way he looked at you when he realized you were here...it was as though you two were the only people on earth."

"Well he has a funny way of showing it," Harry muttered, sipping a bit of his own lukewarm tea and trying to calm himself down. He was grateful for Andromeda's emission of the topic of Harry's sexuality. She seemed to understand that his attraction to Draco was not a conscious decision on his part, and her reassurance that this wasn't all in his head was a comfort to him as he began to get his footing again.

"He needs time," she said. "I think you both need to be able to heal from everything that's happening first."

Harry nodded slowly in response, staring off into space and still deep in thought.

"Do you care about him?" Andromeda asked, catching him off guard. He blinked a couple times, surprised by the forwardness of her question.

"Er... yeah. Yeah, I think I do." His could feel his ears turning red, but he tried to ignore this and focus on the matter at hand.

"You should find him," She said, offering him another encouraging smile. "I feel as though he shouldn't be alone right now,"

"Yeah, you're probably right," he said, getting up from the table and fetching his auror robes from where he had hung them in the hallway. "Will you be okay with Teddy for a bit? I can come back afterwards if you need me."

"I'll be fine. Go." She smiled again at Harry. As he began to leave, he promised himself that he would try to be here more often from now on. He would hardly have anything else going on now, anyways.

...

Diagon Alley was less crowded than it usually was when Harry visited, and Harry had to remind himself that it was the middle of a workday, and not everyone had the luxury of dropping by the Leaky Cauldron to grab a pint at two in the afternoon. He walked into the building to find a couple of middle aged, tired-looking wizards nursing glasses filled with an amber brown liquid, and Tom, the barman, in his usual state of shuffling behind the counter.

"Oi, Potter!" he exclaimed when he saw Harry wander in. "Fancy a shot of Firewhiskey? It's on the house."

Harry smiled, as he always did when he was offered a credit in a bar. People never tired of flooding upon him their material possessions for his service in the wizarding war. It usually irritated him to an extent - he was so tired of being recognized and applauded everywhere he went - but he tried to remember that they were acting out of gratitude, and not purposefully trying to draw attention to him. As much as he would have loved to stay at the bar and drink until he could no longer feel the debilitating apprehension for the conversation that awaited him upstairs, he figured he would save this offer for another time.

"Sorry, don't think I can today," he said, glancing up the staircase and thinking of the last time he had met Ginny here for a drink, how different of a situation it had been at that time.

"Tom, which room is Draco Malfoy in?"

Tom exhaled loudly, rolling his eyes in response to Harry's question. "He's up in 12, at the end of the hall, went up there a bit ago. But you can tell him he won't be here next week if he doesn't pay off his tab. I've got no interest in floating him for the next three months with that erratic payment plan of his."

"Right, thanks. I'll tell him." Harry replied, wondering idly how deep of a hole Malfoy had managed to dig himself into.

He began to climb the rickety, wooden stairs, remembering the summer that he had stayed in this inn before his third year at Hogwarts, how he always used to bound up this staircase after exploring the shops all day and eating a full meal downstairs each evening. The hallway still smelled the same, of aged wood and musty linens. He would have given almost anything to go back to being a bright-eyed thirteen year old now, when his biggest concern was worrying that he wouldn't get enough practice in to lead Gryffindor to victory in Quidditch that semester. Sirius was still alive, as were Remus, and Tonks, and Fred, and Dumbledore. With the passing of each consecutive year, Harry was only reminded of how much he had lost with them.

Harry reached Draco's door at the end of the hallway and knocked gently, waiting for a response. The sound of a mouse squeaked from somewhere down the hall, and the clink of bar glasses drifted faintly up the stairs. He heard nothing but silence on the other side of the door. There were no footsteps, no aggravated commands for him to piss off. He tried knocking again, this time a bit louder, and then tried the door handle. It was locked. He pulled out his wand and performed a quick Alohomora charm, but to no avail. Draco must have used a protected lock on the other side of the door.

It was possible, Harry supposed, that Tom may have missed Draco leaving the inn again, that maybe he wasn't here at all. He could have been any number of places, Harry thought, perhaps at the hospital, or off with whatever person he had been "seeing" in June when he had first knocked on Harry's door. The more he thought about it, however, the more he wondered where else Draco would have to go, if he had resorted to paying an estranged family member a visit in exchange for lodging. What with the argument they had just had, and with Draco's last, somewhat ominous words spoken to Harry, he had to at least know that Draco was safe.

After not receiving a response again, Harry cast a quick muffliato charm in the hallway so that he wouldn't be overheard by anyone downstairs, then gripped the door handle and shoved with his shoulder as hard as he could. The ancient door gave way after only a couple tries, and he stumbled into the dimly-lit room.

The stacks of books lining the walls and piled on the floor caught his attention immediately. He noticed a couple of these books lying open on the desk, the middle spliced out to contain an indentation about 4 inches wide. Harry's heart sank like an anchor when he realized what had just happened.

"No, no, no, no," He muttered, his eyes darting frantically around the room, the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He rounded a corner into the lavatory and with a jolt of horror found Draco there, slumped against a wall, not appearing to be breathing.

Harry swore loudly, quickly kneeling by Draco's side and gripping his wrist to make sure he was alive. His skin was like ice against Harry's fingertips, but Harry could still feel the faint pulse of a heartbeat pumping blood through his veins. There had to still be time; he couldn't let Malfoy's life end like this.

Harry scrambled back into the room with all of Malfoy's belongings and stacks of Laethelixir, finding his school trunk in the corner and beginning to dig through its contents in a panicked surge of adrenaline. He had been in a similar situation before, he remembered. When Ron has taken the poisoned mead in Slughorn's office, he had been able to save Ron's life mostly out of luck - He was able to administer the Bezoar he had found in Slughorn's potion ingredients just in time. Harry wasn't naive enough to expect the same luck twice in a row, but nonetheless cast a summoning charm for a Bezoar, waiting a couple seconds for something to happen before taking out Draco's old tin box of potion ingredients in a desperate effort to do something, anything to fix this. He thanked whatever deity could hear him that Malfoy had always been better organized than himself; the vials of potions and spare ingredients were stacked neatly inside the box and wrapped in parchment for safekeeping. Harry remembered his own trunk with the spilled ink bottles and old socks scattered throughout, and was grateful that Malfoy had at least made this part as easy as possible for him. He shuffled through the vials, noticing that most of them appeared to be for medical purposes: Murtlap essence, burn-healing paste, essence of dittany, and with a shock, Harry found a vial labeled "Antidote to Common Poisons". He wasn't sure if Laethelixir fell under the category of "common poisons," but was willing to try anything at this point.

He rushed back over to the lavatory as fast as he could, kneeling down by Draco once more and uncorking the vial, opening Draco's lips slightly and tilting his head back so he could pour the entire potion down his throat. He waited for several excruciating seconds, hoping more than anything that this would work, knowing that if it didn't, Draco's blood was surely on his hands. He prodded Draco, checking his pulse several times to make sure he was still alive.

After what felt like a lifetime of Harry counting Draco's heartbeats, dreading the worst possible outcome, Draco's eyes flickered open. He gasped loudly, taking several deep, rasping breaths, then immediately leaned his head over the toilet and coughed up the elixir he had ingested, along with the potion that had just been administered. Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding for nearly ten minutes, and leaned his head against the bathroom wall in relief.

Draco slumped back towards Harry when he had gotten everything out of his system. He was clearly still delirious; both his skin and lips were deathly pale, and his eyes couldn't focus on anything in front of him. He laid his head down in Harry's lap, probably not realizing what he was doing.

"I'm sorry," He whimpered, his voice sounding so much weaker than it had been when they were at the cottage. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Harry stroked his head, slowly comforting Malfoy and also calming himself down. His heart rate was finally starting to go back to normal.

"Don't be sorry," he whispered, his fingers weaving through Malfoy's platinum blonde hair gently. "It's ok. You're ok."

"Don't leave," Malfoy said softly, and Harry felt a wave of sorrow for what had just happened, for the decision that Malfoy had just made because he truly believed there was nothing left to live for. "Please stay with me."

"I'm not going anywhere." Harry replied, his hand slowly caressing Malfoy's head until he could feel the other man's breathing fall into a slow rhythm. Trying to cause as little disruption as possible, Harry got to his feet and cast a spell to levitate Malfoy into his bed, finally taking a deep breath once he was safely lying down.

Harry fixed the door back on its hinges so that they wouldn't be barged in on; the last thing they needed was for them to be found together in this room with probably thousands of galleons worth of Laethelixir. He sat down in the chair at Malfoy's desk and tried to think of the best way to handle the predicament they were in.

He was distracted momentarily by three letters sitting next to the empty vials of Laethelixir; they were addressed to Draco's mum, to someone called Mitchell Bennett, and, surprisingly, to himself. Harry noticed curiously that there wasn't a letter for Draco's father, and wondered if he had been emitted intentionally, or if Draco had run out of time. He wanted to read the letter with his name on it more than anything, mostly just to understand Draco's thought process after their conversation at the cottage, but knew that it wasn't his decision whether or not that letter was opened. He would let Draco choose whether he wanted Harry to read it when he was back to his normal self.

Which brought Harry back to the present moment. More specifically, the amount of illegal contraband contained in this room. He would have to find a way to get rid of it somehow; he couldn't just leave Draco to sell it all so that something like this could happen all over again. Harry sat at the desk and began to devise a plan, taking out a spare piece of parchment and beginning to scribble his thoughts on it idly. Draco slept soundlessly through the evening and into the night, and by the time the morning sun began to filter in through the window over the desk, Harry had finally figured out what he needed to do.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you all for reading and sticking with me so far! Exciting things are coming. I just have to get enough time to sit down and write them. Thank you for all of your lovely feedback and comments, because they really give me the surge I need to keep writing when things in life get a little busy. You're all so wonderful and I appreciate you taking the time to read this story!

**Chapter Eight**

"Well the way I feel is the way I write

It isn't like the thoughts of the man who lies

We've got a truth and it's on our side

Dawn is coming, open your eyes

But I will stay with you tonight

Hold you close 'til the morning light

We've got a truth and it's on our side

Dawn is coming, open your eyes."

-Stay Alive, Roo Panes

September, 1998

The first thought going through Draco's head when he jolted awake in a strange, four poster bed was that he had absolutely no idea where he was. His wand and shoes were nowhere within sight. There was loud music playing nearby, heavy drums and guitars carrying up through the floorboards of the room Draco found himself in. The old, wooden bed he was lying in was very similar to his own ornately carved furniture back in the manor, and the dusty, emerald green hangings and tapestries covering the walls made him feel like he was back in the Slytherin Common Room at Hogwarts, but this place was just as foreign to him as the blaring rock music that was permeating the walls.

The second thing he registered after he had sprung out of the bed was that he had never felt worse in his life. His head was throbbing with a terrible, pounding pain, his bones were still weak and bruised from the night he had spent with Delev, and the gnawing, aching pain in his stomach reminded him that he needed to eat something soon or his body would stop functioning entirely.

He opened the door of the bedroom and glanced down the hallway, only starting to get his bearings when he saw the house elf heads mounted on the wall adjacent to him. This must be Potter's place, then. He had never been upstairs before, but now recognized the Black family crest above the bed in the room he had just left, and knew this had to have been the old house that Sirius and Regulus grew up in. He wondered how he could have gotten all the way to Harry's flat in London without even realizing it.

The memories started flooding back from the day before, the fight he and Potter had gotten into back at the cottage, his letters, the Laethelixir, and then finally Harry waking him up, holding him in his arms as the waves of agony shook through Draco's body with whatever medicine Harry had administered to counteract the elixir. The whole thing had felt like a long, terrible dream, but Draco was still here. He was alive, and he was no longer in the Leaky Cauldron, and he could detect the scent of fried eggs wafting up the staircase as he walked further down the hallway. The music grew louder as he stepped lightly down the stairs and into Potter's familiar kitchen.

There was an old, rounded box sitting on the counter that was emitting the music Draco had heard from the bedroom. Harry had his back to the doorway and was cooking what looked like a large, colorful mixture of food on the stovetop, using a plastic spatula instead of his wand for whatever reason he saw fit. He was frying up tomatoes, eggs, and diced potatoes in a skillet, swaying slightly with the beat of the music and sprinkling ingredients into the pan with a delicacy that Draco found rather endearing to observe. He couldn't help but smile as he stood in the kitchen watching Harry, forgetting about the amount of pain he had been through in the last 24 hours, and letting the matters of his family, his finances and his predicament with the Laethelixir fade into the background for a moment.

Harry was wearing a light grey T-shirt that hugged his newly refined muscles more than he probably realized, and it was doing all kinds of favors for his physique. Draco took the opportunity to let his eyes shamelessly rove over Harry's shoulders, his trim yet delightfully curved waist, and the shape of his arse in the faded blue jeans he wore. Potter made a movement to grab some salt and Draco quickly averted his gaze, as though Potter would be able to sense he was being stared at.

"That's really loud, you know." He said, causing Harry to spin around and drop the spatula he was holding. He clearly hadn't realized that Draco was in the room.

"That was kind of the point," Harry said, picking the utensil up and grinning as he tossed it into the sink. "I couldn't think of another way to wake you up without dragging you out of bed," He stepped over to the radio and adjusted the volume so that Draco could actually hear himself think.

"Here," Harry said, picking up a plate that was resting on the counter. "This one's for you." He flipped the contents of the pan onto the plate and offered it to Draco, who couldn't even remember the last time he had eaten a home cooked meal.

"Thanks," he said, not knowing what else to reply with at the moment. He didn't really have anything else he could say to Potter, except that he was glad to be in a place that wasn't his bedroom in Diagon Alley, and he was grateful to still be alive, all things considered. He sat down and started eating the food on his plate as Potter carried on cooking his own breakfast.

As soon as Draco had finished his eggs and was about to head upstairs, Harry brought his own plate over to the table and set two steaming mugs of coffee down in front of them. He didn't say anything, but held his own mug in a way that communicated he was waiting for a conversation to take place. That was the last thing Draco felt like giving him at the moment, but he picked up the mug of coffee all the same to express gratitude for the gesture.

"What?" He asked, when Harry's expression became a bit too pointed. Harry merely shrugged, taking a drink of the coffee and pretending he wasn't prodding Draco for anything. Harry's attitude, which Draco had first interpreted to be casual and unassuming, was clearly an act to hide the fact that there were a number of questions he still needed answers to. Draco nearly rolled his eyes, trying to mentally prepare himself for the impending conversation that he didn't think could possibly go well.

"Do you have my wand?" Draco asked, thinking back to the reason he had wound up in Harry's kitchen in the first place back in June.

"Yes," Harry replied, not providing any additional details. Draco saw that underneath the lighthearted demeanor Harry was putting on, his eyes looked troubled. It was clear that he hadn't slept at all last night.

"Can I have it back?" He asked, seeing how much leniency he was able to get away with after what had happened yesterday.

"No," Harry said plainly. Using a fork to tear into his omelet. "Not until I know this sort of thing won't happen again."

So that was his angle. He was going to try to be the protective, calm, and responsible adult in this situation, the man who made Draco breakfast after saving his life, and who set the boundaries on what was and was not permitted in his house. Draco wished he would have just come right out and addressed the issue, rather than skirting around it like a trained dancer.

"Potter, you can't hide my wand from me. I'm not your prisoner."

Harry placed his fork down on his plate, fixing Draco with another discerning look.

"I think we both know that."

Harry said nothing else to elaborate upon this, but instead continued to stare at him with a look that said 'you wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't saved your life yesterday, so I'm not going to play your games'. It reminded Draco of the same, all-knowing gaze he had received from Dumbledore whenever Draco had spoken with the headmaster in the last couple months of his life. It was as though he were having his mind read; Even without using legilimency, Dumbledore somehow knew exactly what he was thinking and which course of action he would execute next. The predicament Draco was in now was even more humiliating than his feeble attempts to assassinate Dumbledore two years ago. The elephant in the room loomed over them both: he had tried to kill himself last night, and Harry had been there to stop it. He didn't know if his pride would ever recover from such a blow.

Draco closed his eyes for a moment, taking a slow, deep breath and wondering how long it was going to be before he could see his wand, if Harry was ever intending to return it to him again.

"Where are the books?" He asked, addressing the potions they were surely both thinking about. He imagined with a surge of horror the stash of Laethelixir being found by Tom after he had left the room, and then his own descent straight into the gates of Azkaban.

"Is that what we're calling them?" Harry retorted, still keeping his expression much calmer than Draco would have expected given the circumstances.

"Potter, please. It's important those don't get out..."

"I know it's important. I'm handling it."

There was a moment of silence between the two.

"How... Are you handling it?" Draco asked, doing his best to confirm that there wouldn't be ministry officials swarming into the house as soon as Harry gave the orders.

Harry granted Draco a long, serious look, his bright green eyes lingering on Draco's grey ones for a little too long. Draco wished desperately to know what he was thinking, whether or not he had shared this experience with anyone, if he was intending on turning Draco in once the dust from the night before had settled.

"Follow me," Harry said, standing up and bringing his coffee into the study that he had shown Draco the last time they had been in this house together.

It was much cleaner than it had been when Draco had last visited. Harry's clothes were no longer lying on every available surface, and the contents of his trunk were neatly tucked away in the corner. Draco noticed his own school trunk sitting next to Harry's on the other side of the couch.

Harry knelt down by Draco's green leather trunk and unfastened the clasps, lifting the lid and propping it against the wall.

Inside the chest were all of the books that had been piled up in Draco's room. The interior of the chest was now roughly the size of a small washroom, and the books were stacked haphazardly against the walls as they had been in The Leaky Cauldron. There had to be hundreds of them, and they now all fit neatly inside the school trunk with the rest of Draco's possessions.

"Extension charm," he said in response to Draco's raised eyebrows. "It took me all night to get it right, even while following the step-by-step guide in your school books."

"You didn't get Granger to do it for you?"

Harry shook his head, letting the lid of the trunk fall closed.

"I haven't told anyone, if that's what you're asking," He said as he stood back up, dispelling the fear that Draco had been having since the moment he woke up.

"Why not?" He asked, hoping that he wasn't unwittingly making a case for Harry to turn him over to the ministry.

Harry gave Draco another long, lingering stare. Draco was starting to grow uncomfortable with the amount of eye contact they were sharing; it was as though Harry were trying to pry him for as much information as possible without really saying anything.

"Draco, I don't understand a lot of what's been going on with you these last months, and you're right. It's because I didn't write to you, and I didn't try to find you, and I'm sorry I handled things the way that I did. But you have to understand that _this_," he said, gesturing towards the closed trunk, "All of this, on top of your father's sentence and the investigation at Malfoy Manor, I'm sure you know is enough to get you life in Azkaban just like him."

"I don't need another lecture, Potter. I knew what the stakes were when I got involved."

Harry paused again, raising an eyebrow as though Draco still wasn't grasping the severity of their predicament.

"You should stay here for a bit," He said. "If you go back to the Leaky Cauldron, hell, if you go anywhere at this point, there will be people waiting for you, trying to hunt you down. I can't imagine that you disappearing out of thin air with this much Laethelixir can put you in a favorable position with your supplier."

"Why is that any of your concern?" Malfoy asked, scowling slightly. "Why do you give a fuck whether I get killed or not? I'm a distributor, just like them. If you had any moral decency you'd be arresting me right now."

Harry ignored him and continued, carrying on with the speech that he had no doubt spent a couple of hours rehearsing.

"I think we can help each other out, Draco. You need a place to live where you won't get killed by the hitmen they're probably sending after you right this moment, and I need my job back in the ministry."

"You lost your job?" Draco asked, taken aback by Harry's statement. "So you're not an auror anymore?"

"No, I am. It's... Complicated. That's not important."

"It sounds important."

"It's not. It's temporary, and I'm fixing it."

"If you say so."

"Anyways, if you stay here and lie low for a while, we can take the information you have and put the people who are after you behind bars. We can turn the product directly in to the ministry, so you don't have to sell it or move it around in a way that would draw attention to yourself. I think it's the only way out of this mess."

Now it was Draco's turn to fix him with a pointed, disbelieving stare.

"So... Correct me if I'm wrong. You're asking me to turn over my contacts, betray my suppliers and risk my own fucking neck, just so you can play the savior card at the ministry and get your job back?"

Harry exhaled loudly, and Draco couldn't help but feel a hint of satisfaction; he had managed to get a rise out of Potter. It was just like the old days, the same, familiar adrenaline rush when Potter's blood began to boil and Draco was responsible for it. It was this slight, subtle way in which Draco could directly observe the effect he had on Harry that he craved; in school he would lie up in his four poster at night strategizing how to improve his craft the following morning to get even more recognition, to have the other boy react to him in a way that would ensure he was being thought about. It was no longer a game that the two of them played in the courtyards and corridors in between classes, but his base instinct was to push back, to keep pushing until Harry said something that he wanted to hear, until he was validated by Harry in the way that he so desperately needed.

"Look," Harry said, running his fingers through his messy black hair and making Draco wonder how his own hands would feel in their place. "We're running out of options, here. If you leave and they find you, they will kill you. If you stay here and help me, we can take care of this, and I'll do my best to help you clear your name and get your mansion back."

Draco smirked slightly, realizing that this entire plan hinged on Harry's assumption that Draco would comply with everything he had laid out. There had been a subtle, underlying shift in the power dynamic, and Draco couldn't miss an opportunity to point out that Harry needed him for something. That was the subtext in this conversation, after all. Potter needed his help, and was willing to save him from the miserable situation he had fallen into as an exchange for his cooperation. Draco decided he could go a bit longer without agreeing to the plan, just to see what other truths he could coax out of Harry in the process.

"Honestly," he started, "I'd rather be dead than play the supporting role in your trumped up, heroic fantasy. And quite frankly, I'm surprised you're even able to spare a room with the size of your ego."

"Alright, that was... unnecessary," Harry said, rolling his eyes and looking like he would rather be doing anything except this right now.

"How do I know you won't turn me in with the rest of them once you have your names? Why would you protect me?"

"Draco," Harry sighed, his tone more exasperated than Draco had heard it in quite some time. "Please just... Listen to me. I'm tired, and I spent all night worrying about getting you here safely and coming up with a plan for how to keep you alive. I just... I'm sick of the mind games and I need you to be on my side for once."

"Why?" Draco said, continuing to push back until he got what he wanted. "Why are you doing any of this? Why do you care so much about keeping me alive?" He was now just a foot away from Harry's face, and could see every freckle, every scar that had once scraped his perfect, irritatingly clear complexion.

He continued to look into Harry's eyes, urging him to acknowledge that there was something more than a convenient arrangement between the two of them. Harry hadn't just done all of this because he felt bad about Malfoy almost taking his own life; there was something else that had nothing to do with whether or not Draco was being hunted down by Delev and the suppliers. The attraction between them was probably more powerful than either of them realized, and all that Draco wanted was for Harry to admit that he felt the same way as Draco did. He wanted to know that Harry truly cared about him, not as a joke, not as a conquest that would improve Harry's own self esteem when he got what he wanted, and not as a former classmate who he felt obligated to save because of his aforementioned hero complex.

Harry cleared his throat, trying to dispel the latent, unbearable silence that had filled the room. He looked distressed, as though he wasn't ready to admit to himself what Draco was asking of him, but Draco didn't let his gaze falter.

"What do you me-" Harry began, but Draco interrupted him immediately.

"You know what I mean."

There was another pause, in which Draco wondered if he would ever have his question answered, if Harry would ever address what had happened between them in his kitchen, if he even felt the same way Draco did. Surely if he had taken this long to say anything, the sentiment couldn't have been mutual.

Draco broke the eye contact finally, looking down at the ground and turning, ready to leave the study again. So this was _really _the end, then. He would have to find his wand, would have to get out of here as soon as possible and let whatever fate that awaited him outside these doors catch up with him. At least he would probably get to say goodbye to his mother before they found him.

"Draco, wait." Harry's voice was loud, more forceful than it had been earlier, and commanding enough to cause Draco to pause in the doorway.

"Don't go. Stop fucking leaving whenever I'm about to say something to you."

Draco stopped, a bit surprised by Harry's tone, and turned around to face him. Harry had set down his coffee cup, and was standing resolutely by the trunk, his jaw set as though he were struggling to decide which words to let out.

"I'm bad at this," he said, running a hand through his hair again in what Draco had now identified as a familiar nervous habit. "I'm bad at relationships, and saying what I'm feeling, and... Really the only other people I've been with have initiated the romantic aspects of... Things."

Draco remained standing in the doorway, his heart giving a lurch in his chest when Harry categorized this as a "romantic" relationship, but let him speak without interruption.

"I couldn't sleep for weeks after the war," Harry said slowly, now directing his words to his feet. "I kept having nightmares about the people who had died, about Voldemort coming back, about my friends being tortured and me not being able to save them." He took a deep breath, continuing to speak to Draco in a slow, controlled cadence. Draco could tell it was taking a great amount of his remaining energy to coax the words to the surface.

"When you came here in June, when we kissed... It was like a switch had flipped on in my head. I was dreaming again, but not about the war - I was having dreams about you. I was looking forward to sleeping every night because I was kissing you, and doing other things with you... Anyways, it made me feel safe when nothing else in my life was going right." Harry had brought his eyes up to meet Draco's once more, and Draco held his gaze unflinchingly.

"It's been getting bad again," Harry continued. "I've been having trouble with training. They put me on temporary leave because I just can't... Make the memories go away. They just keep coming up in different ways, and you were the only thing that made them stop."

"Harry," Draco said softly, addressing him by his first name for the first time in recent memory. He took a couple steps towards the other man, but Harry held a hand up to stop him before he had reached the school trunk.

"Wait. I just... I need to say something else," he said, clearly wanting to get it all out of his system before he lost his nerve. "I'm sorry about not finding you after you left. About not writing, or trying to see you at the inn. I wanted to, trust me, I was just..."

"Scared?" Draco asked, a smile prying at his lips.

Harry grinned, finally taking a breath and chuckling in spite of himself.

"Fuck you," he said with a laugh, raising his hand to ruffle the back of his head again, but before he could reach upwards, Draco caught his forearm and held it in his grasp. He looked into Potter's eyes, the bright green hue more intense than Draco had remembered. He glanced down at Harry's pink lips, remembering the taste of them from the last time they had kissed.

"Do you really want me to stay?" He asked, bringing Potter's arm down to his side and running his fingers over the goosebumps that had formed upon his touch.

"Yeah, I really do." Harry's face was beginning to turn pink. Draco had thought there wasn't anything that would make him want to kiss Harry more, but now he couldn't resist if he wanted to.

"The beard really does suit you, you know," he said, taking another step forward so that he could feel the warmth of Harry's breath on his face.

"Thank God, I'd be lost without your approval," Harry retorted sarcastically.

"I've nearly had it with your sass, though," Draco whispered, placing a finger under Harry's chin and bringing it up to his own, hovering over his lips.

"I think you know how to shut me up," Harry grinned, making Draco smile as well, and then finally press his mouth gently against Harry's full lips.

It wasn't like last time at all. The kiss wasn't torn out of them by instinct in an almost violent fit of passion; it was soft and tender, it was Draco apologizing for the way he had left Harry, for not coming to him sooner and asking for help, for trying to deal with things the way he had last night. Harry inhaled deeply and brought his hands up into Draco's hair, breaking the kiss only to glance at Draco's face through his dark lashes. Draco let his hands trace down the side of Harry's body, feeling the firm muscles through his shirt and the familiar curve of his hips, pulling him a little closer by the belt loops in his jeans. Waves of endorphins exploded in his head like fireworks as he slowly kissed Harry's lips again, and again, the elation better than even the Laethelixir he had taken last night.

Draco's knees backed against the fabric of the sofa in the room, and Harry pushed his shoulders lightly to coax him onto the cushions, climbing on top of him and planting a thigh on either side of his waist as his lips continued to administer Draco's. He was phenomenally talented, Draco remarked to himself when Harry's tongue pressed against his lips for entry, especially considering he had probably only gotten laid a handful of times in his life. He didn't have an instructor like Bennett to show him the ropes as Draco had; in typical Potter fashion, he just added his own spin to whatever he was doing and happened to be fantastic at it. It was a quality of his that Draco had always found infuriating, but also rather impressive at the same time.

"Easy," Draco whispered again, his hands holding Harry's thighs to support him on Draco's torso. "We have all day - Go slow."

Harry followed his direction, beginning to rock his hips towards Draco's at an agonizingly slow pace, his lips drifting down to the pale skin of Draco's neck. Draco remembered the mark Harry had left there last time, the one that Bennett had noticed immediately. It didn't matter now, he thought with triumph. There was nowhere else he needed to be, no one he needed to answer to. He tilted his head back as Harry unfastened the top few buttons of his shirt, giving him full access to whatever part of his body Harry wanted to explore. Harry's tongue was tantalizingly warm, his touch on Draco's body sending electric jolts up and down his spine.

Harry paused, however, when he had opened the rest of Draco's shirt to reveal the skin beneath. Draco remembered with a twinge of embarrassment that he had never administered any type of healing charms after the night he had spent with Delev, that the bruises and marks the older man had left on his body would probably look even worse than they had yesterday.

Sure enough, when Harry had pulled his shirt off of his shoulders he drew away, his eyes roaming over Draco's chest. He traced the outlines of the scratches, bite marks and bruises on Draco's torso with a delicate finger, noticing the scars on the surface, but also the deep, white ones that ran across his body.

"Draco, are these from when... Did I - " Harry asked, the concern in his voice enough to make Draco wish he had never opened his shirt.

"Some of them, yeah," Draco replied, glad that at least his bruised wrists and the self-inflicted scars on his Dark Mark tattoo were covered up by his shirt still. "If you give me my wand back, I can fix the other ones."

"Who did this to you?" Harry asked in a worried tone, dismounting from Draco's torso and making the taller boy let out a sigh of frustration.

"Potter, it's nothing. I don't want to talk about it."

"It's not nothing, some of those scars are really deep." Harry was now standing up and getting something from the corner of the room. Draco began to fasten the buttons on his shirt again; clearly the moment he had been hoping for had passed.

"Just forget it, okay? What are you doing?" Harry was rummaging around in Draco's trunk once more. He closed it after a moment of searching, bringing back Draco's wand and the bottle of the dittany Draco had mixed together after he had paid the visit to Knockturn Alley which had led him down the path of being a distributor in the first place. It was odd, thinking about the fact that if Draco hadn't left Harry's house the way he did back in June, none of this would have happened to him.

Harry joined him back on the sofa, giving him both the wand and the dittany so he could start healing the wounds on his chest.

"You can talk to me," he said, the lust in his eyes a couple of moments ago now replaced with sorrow for whatever he thought was going on in Draco's life. "I promise I won't do anything you don't want me to."

Draco stared at him for a moment, wondering if Potter was the kind of person he could open up to, or if he was just going to move on and take the parts of Draco's soul that had been laid bare with him.

"If I tell you, will you run off and try to find him?"

Potter's eyes were sincere.

"Not unless you want me to."

Draco took a deep breath, unbuttoning his shirt once more so that he could administer the dittany on some of his deeper wounds.

"He's the head of the suppliers," Draco said, wincing as he dabbed the potion on his skin. "A man called Delev. He's powerful, he has a ring of followers within the Wizarding Community, and he's branched out to some muggle neighborhoods as well. I needed some money, and he... He let me work for it."

Harry's jaw clenched when he understood what Draco had said. Draco was glad he had made Harry agree not to go running after Delev; he couldn't think of anything worse than Harry rushing into a dangerous situation with a hot head and getting himself hurt.

"Doesn't that make it all the more important for us to stop him?"

Draco nearly rolled his eyes at how irritatingly Gryffindor-like Harry was acting. Of course he would see this as a challenge, and not a dangerous situation that both of them should avoid so as not to meet a gruesome, untimely death.

"Last time I checked you were suspended from the ministry," he said, returning Harry's determined expression with a light-hearted smirk. "What do you expect to be able to do from your couch?"

Harry took the bottle of Dittany from Draco and, conjuring up a clean rag from his kitchen, helped him administer the substance on his bare chest.

"Lucky for both of us," he said as he looked up at Draco again, returning his smirk with a gleaming, mischievous look in his eyes, "I've never been too fond of following rules."

Draco laughed, in spite of everything that was happening at the moment. The marks on his chest were searing his skin as they healed, and his pants were still uncomfortably tight as a result of the kiss they had shared, but he allowed himself to toss his head back and laugh at the brazen, reckless man he had found himself growing to like more than he had even thought possible over the last 24 hours. It was almost absurd, how much time he had spent fantasizing about getting into Potter's trousers for as long as he could remember, only to now be just as content laughing at his jokes as he would be if they were fucking on the sofa. Harry began to laugh too, probably thinking, as Draco was, how ridiculous all of this seemed. It felt good to laugh after the terrible night they had shared. Harry continued to chuckle, lowering his head slightly, and Draco took the opportunity to kiss him once more. He pressed his smiling lips to Harry's and cupped his bearded face with both of his hands.

"You're insane," he whispered into Harry's mouth, thinking of how handsome Harry was when he smiled. It lit up his features and extended all the way to his sparkling, green eyes, and all Draco could think of was how happy it made him to be the reason for that incandescent grin.

"You're an arse," he muttered back into Draco's lips, placing the rag and the Dittany on the floor beside them.

Harry broke away from their kiss momentarily to suppress a small yawn, and Draco laughed at how endearing it was to watch Harry do something so ordinary.

"You're going to fall asleep on me, aren't you?" Draco smirked, placing another gentle kiss on Harry's lips.

"I was too busy saving your life to sleep last night, actually," Harry retorted, smiling back at Draco.

"Typical Potter," Draco scoffed playfully.

Harry slumped his head against Draco's shoulder, and Draco held it there, weaving his fingers into the thick, dark hair that smelled faintly of pine, a rich, musky scent that he wasn't immediately able to identify. He let his hand rest there, keeping Harry still on his chest and listening to the steady, soft sound of their breaths as they slowly fell into sync, Harry's chest beginning to rise and fall with his own.

"Let's go upstairs," Draco said after a couple, quiet minutes had passed. "It'll be easier for you to sleep."

Harry lifted his green eyes to Draco's again, the look of exhaustion on his face making Draco want to scoop him up in his arms and carry him right up the stairs.

"I'd like that," he said. Draco wanted to take a mental snapshot of how perfect this moment was, wanted to memorize the spacing of the furniture and the way the light was filtering into the study from the back window, and the smell of Harry's skin that was making his heart do somersaults in his chest.

There was nothing he would like more than to wrap Harry in his arms and crawl under the soft blankets of Harry's bed together. He took Harry's hand and led him up the staircase, closing the door gently behind them.


End file.
